The Stepford Killer
by Scosh81
Summary: Will Tony and Ziva hook up while undercover? Only time will tell!
1. The Bet

Special Agent Timothy McGee shook his head at the scene in front of him. Tony was standing in front of Abby's lab table looking like the proverbial cat that had caught the Canary. Ziva stood off to the side Glaring Daggers at him. Abby was shaking with Silent laughter and Gibbs was rolling his eyes at the 3 of them.

The team had been called on to go on another undercover case, one where Ziva was going to be forced to play a stepford wife much to her intense displeasure, and Tony was to play her husband. Abby and Tim had been recruited to play a couple down the street and while Abby was excited for her first chance to get out of her Lab and into the field so to speak, Ziva was absolutely irate that she would have to stay at home and play a dutiful wife to DiNozzo, who of course was going to love every minute of this assignment.

"Tony if you don't remove that look off your face, I will personally remove it for you. And I can guarantee it won't be pleasant!" Ziva finally growled as she stalked over to where Tony was standing at the lab table. "Oh come on Sweet Cheeks, you and I both know that you've been dying for your chance to get undercover with me again." He replied wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at her.

"DiNozzo, David, my conference room, now!" Gibbs walked over to Tony, grabbed him by the ear and started marching over to the elevator doors. "Ouch, boss, come on now, I need those." Tony muttered as he walked along side Gibbs. Ziva threw a triumphant look at Abby and McGee before following the two men towards the elevator.

"Ok goody Mcgee, this is going to be so much fun! We'll get to go on double dates and we can totally watch Tony and Ziva hooking up!"

"Wait, what?" McGee asked as he throws his hand up in the air. "Tony and Ziva are not hooking up Abby. They're partners. You know, they work together?" He exclaimed as he made sure to not make eye contact with Abby.

"What are you hiding from me McGee?" Abby asked as she stomps over to McGee and stands right in front of him.

"I'm not hiding anything Abby, what makes you think I'm hiding something?" McGee shuffled his feet a little nervously.

"McGee I know that look. And that look tells me you know something. And that you haven't shared whatever it is you know with me. I let you off the hook for that whole cupcake incident and now you're going to spill whatever it is you have to spill, or I'm going to kill you and leave"

"No forensic evidence, yeah, I've heard it before Abby. But that doesn't mean I know something." Abby continued to glare at him for a couple of minutes.

"All right fine, but if you repeat a word of this to anyone I will never tell you anything again!" Abby mimicked zipping her lips, "My lips are sealed Tim, come on, give!"

"Fine, there's been a bit of….tension, of late between the two of them."

"What kind of tension, they're always tense; she's Mossad for crying out load McGee, tension is like her thing. And we all know Tony finds her hot which is tense for him cause he has a hard time keeping his hands to himself"

"Abby are you going to let me finish or are you just going to ramble for a few years? Cause there's more then that going on…it's almost like they don't know how to deal with the fact that they're back together. Like there's now some type of unresolved issue they're being forced to deal with."

"I'm sure there is McGee. They were gone for 4 months, and before that they were together every day. They're like BFF and now they have to readjust to having their BFF back. Not to mention the fact that they're totally in Love."

"Wait, you think they're in Love? They're like little kids Abby, they argue over everything, DiNozzo is constantly playing pranks on her and trying to annoy her. It's almost like… Oh my gosh, he's a fifth grader trying to get the attention of the girl he likes. Ugh, he is in love with her. No wonder things are so awkward."

"All right McGee, here's the plan. We need to get them together so that they can finally stop dancing around this and we can all move on with our lives."

"Wow, bit melodramatic don't you think. So we can all move on with our lives? My life is going just fine thanks. Besides what about rule 12 Abbs? You know, never date a co-worker?"

"It didn't apply to us so why should it apply to them? Besides, I'll gradually work Gibbs up to the idea. He can't say no to me, I'm his favourite. We should take bets on this I think. I bet we can get them to hook up by the end of this assignment."

"There's no way I'm betting on this Abby. The last time we made a bet about Ziva she found out about it, and I was scared to go into the rest room for a month! Not to mention what would happen if Tony found out. There would be no living with him! And if it's all the same to you, I prefer not having to listen to Tony go on and on and on."

"McGee, where's the fun if there's no risk? You don't gain anything if you don't risk anything. A bet would be fun…we could get the whole office involved. I bet Ducky and Palmer won't be scared to place a little bet!"

"Who are you kidding Abby? We both know Palmer is scared to death of Ziva. He jumps if she so much as looks at him the wrong way! There's no way he's going to place any bets on her love life. You might be able to kill and leave no forensic evidence, but Ziva can cause pain. Lots and lots of pain Abs."

"Fine, then we won't ask Palmer. There's lots of other people that would love to bet on the outcome of this assignment. Besides we would have the inside scoop. We'll get to hang out with them all the time since they'll be our neighbours. Maybe give them a push here and a nudge there. It'll be great!

"All right Abby, but I'll say this right now. If this blows up in our face, and it will, this is all your fault. I take no responsibility in forcing them to hook up. I say that it won't happen on this assignment and I will do nothing to coerce them into anything other then what they have now."

"Deal Tim! But I'm so winning this one! It's going to be great!"


	2. Elevator conversations

As soon as Ziva had followed Gibbs and Tony onto the elevator Gibbs put the elevator in motion and promptly hit the emergency stop button. Tony grimaced as the elevator came to a stop.

"Boss, is this about the prank we played on McGee last week, cause really, he kinda had it coming to him after" Tony hadn't managed to complete his sentence before Gibbs hand made connection with the back of his head.

"David you were in on that?" Gibbs asked as he turned around to glare at Ziva. She shot Tony a dirty look.

"In on it Boss? Who do you think came up with it?" Tony continued completely ignoring the looks his partner was giving him. "I mean I'm good, but that was a stroke of pure evil that could only come from the mind of someone who's been trained in these kinds of things!"

'Enough DiNozzo. You're not in here so we can go over last weeks prank. Although let it be said, that if either of you ever cause one of my agents to spend that much time in the bathroom again there will be hell to pay. Are we clear on this?"

"Yes boss." Came the reply in unison.

"All right then. I want to go over some of the details I don't need McGee and Abby knowing right now." The two agents made eye contact as Gibbs continued to talk. "Abby is going to be in more danger then she realizes. David you are the bait, this guy is killing Navy housewives and ideally we want him going after you. However Abby will also be playing a housewife, and while she won't be his typical MO that doesn't mean she's not at risk. She's a great agent; however she's not trained in this kind of thing. You'll need to keep an eye out for Abby as well as attract the killer to you. I wouldn't put her out there if it wasn't necessary, however Lee is out on leave and I don't trust any of the other agents to have each others back like my team."

"I will watch her with my life if necessary." Ziva replied. At her response Tony turned a little green.

"Nothing will happen boss. We've got it covered. Our Super Ninja girl here will play my little stepford wife so perfectly the killer won't even notice Abby." Tony exclaimed with a leer.

"What is a Stepford wife Tony? And don't even think that you're going to enjoy this. I will make sure to act like you're wife in public however don't even think for a moment that there will be any perks in this for you!"

Gibbs grimaced a little and said "Actually David, we think he plants camera's in the houses…we can't do bug sweeps like we normally would or clearly he would be onto us. I'm afraid that you'll have to actually play Dinozzo's wife for the time being."

Tony's entire face lit up. "This is the best assignment you've ever given me boss. It's like Christmas came early. Ziva, at my beck and call, 24/7."

Ziva'a face turned murderous. "Don't even think about it!" She hissed. "I will NEVER be at your beck and call no matter what the assignment. If anything you will be at my beck and call."

Gibbs slapped a hand across the back of both of their heads. "You will both behave. I won't have my agents running around in the middle of a case trying to one up each other! You will be playing a married couple, let me explain how this works since neither of you have been married before. Sadly, nothing will really change for the two of you. You will argue just like you normally do. You'll toss in a couple of longing looks, just like you normally do. Don't think I haven't noticed them. The only thing that's going to change is you'll need some acts of affection. David you'll iron his shirts, DiNozzo you'll bring her home flowers. You'll pretend to be in love and we'll nab this basterd!"

Tony grinned and tossed his arm over Ziva's shoulder. "So little lady, do you want to start practising now? Cause I have a nice full laundry basket at home that's just dying for some washing."

Tony umphed as Ziva elbowed him in the stomach. She quickly moved out from under his arm and hit the switch to get the elevator moving again. She turned around to glare at both men. "You will owe me one, yes?"

Gibbs allowed a small smirk to cross his face. "David if you can manage to play married to this one for the length of the assignment without killing him, then yes, I'll owe you one."

"Good." She nodded her head. "I will be collecting at the end of this."

"Hey, what about me Gibbs? I'm going to have to be living with her!" Tony felt a shudder pass through his body at the thought. "Don't I get some type of favour for this one? I mean come on, she snores like a trucker!"

The elevator stopped and the three of them got off. "DiNozzo, you'll be lucky if I don't let her kill you." was all Gibbs said as he started walking back to the lab. Ziva tossed him a superior look as she followed Gibbs back to the lab.

"Do not worry, my hairy little but. If I decide to kill you I will make it quick." Tony gulped and stood there for a minute before following his partner back to the lab.

"Just my luck." He muttered under his breath. "I finally get to move in with the Ninja and Gibbs is going to let her kill me."

As the three of them got back to the Lab, Abby and McGee went silent. Abby trying to determine who had won this round and McGee nervous that they would find out about the bet.

"Abbs, Mcgee, lets get this show started could we." Gibbs demanded as he walked back towards the elevator. "We need to get set up as soon as possible. DiNozzo, David you need to go home and pack. Tony you're going to be a suit so dress normally. David you're going to need to wear something besides you're working gear. You two will be independently wealthy so Ziva you're clothes will need to reflect that. You're going to be a woman of Leisure."

Ziva made a face and then turned to DiNozzo. "I never thought I would ever hear myself say this, but will you come shopping with me? Upper class America is not something I know how to shop for."

"Sure thing Sweet Cheeks." Tony replied with a grin. "You've entered into my specialty."

Abby couldn't help the grin as she turned to Mcgee with a wink. "Easy as pie" she whispered as she walked past him to go stand in front of Tony and Ziva. "You guys go get what you need and when you come back I'll have the house all ready and set up for you. Not to mention your ID's and all that other fun stuff."

"Um Abbs" Tim said as he glanced at them from behind the computer. "You'll probably need to go with them. You're going to need a new wardrobe as well since we'll be living up the street."

Abby's face turned a little pale and she turned pleading eyes to Ziva. "I can still wear black right? Please tell me I can still wear black?"

Ziva laughed and linked her arm though Abbys. "Well, this should be interesting. Tony, what do you think? Can we find Abby some black?"

Tony grinned and pretended to think about the question for a moment. "Well, I don't know Zee, lets go to the mall and see what we can come up with."

As the three of them headed out of the Lab towards the elevator McGee just shook his head. "That's one trip I'm glad to not be going on." He muttered as he started to get their identities ready. "Abby, Ziva and Tony in a mall. Ugh."


	3. Background

Tony couldn't believe his luck. As he was driving Ziva and Abby to the mall all he could think about was how fate had finally given him a break. Since he had come back from the Regan all he could think about was how much he had missed his partner. Sure at times she was absolutely terrifying, not to mention hard to get any personal information out of, but he had missed her all the same. Now they were going to go undercover as a married couple, and maybe, just maybe he could tell her how he really felt.

Ziva on the other hand, was wondering how she always ended up in these situations. She was listening to Abby prattle on about clothes and her mind had just started wandering to the situation at hand. She was unsure how she felt about this undercover opp. She had been in love with Tony, and he had more or less broken her heart. He hadn't even known he had had it to break. The 4 months in Israel had finally given her some time to get over him. Now they were going undercover as a married couple and she was terrified that she would fall in love with him again. She honestly didn't think she could handle having her heart broken by Tony DiNozzo once again.

Abby was going on and on about clothes as she could feel the tension in the car and had no idea how to break it. Well, she had a pretty good idea how they could break it, but she didn't think they were ready for that step just yet. She resolved that she would work harder at putting them in some tight situations.

"Ziva, are you even listening to me? I mean, I'm really scared here and you're staring off into space. I'm going to have to get rid of my pigtails, and hey, I even have to be married to McGee!"

"I'm sorry Abby, of course I'm listening. You'll be fine of course. McGee won't let anything happen to you and it could always be worse. You could be married to Tony." Ziva replied while glancing across to Tony who was driving.

"You know Zee-Vah some people would consider it an honour to be married to me."

"Some people also find it fun to walk on hot coals, or to lie on beds of nails. Which proves that there are people out there Tony, who are missing the gene for common sense."

"Hey. That hurts. I'd make a good husband. I'm good looking, charming and I'm great in bed!"

"Ok" Abby interrupted as she could sense things starting to turn violent. "I think this will be fun. We'll get to hang out all the time and catch a bad guy. I even get to see you guys outside of the naval yard. Besides we're here."

Tony pulled into a parking space and got out of the car. "OK ladies, here's what we need. You are going to be upper class America for the next few weeks and you'll need to represent. Nothing but name brands. You're looking for understated elegance. Classy not trashy. You want to look like you have money without screaming that you have money. Since this is on Uncle Sam's credit card go crazy. Get something for everything. You never know where we're going to end up going."

"I may have done this before." Ziva responded dryly. "I think I know what I'm doing. All I need you for it to tell me what's designer."

"Hey." Abby interrupted. "I need his help! "Never mind that I haven't done this before, I wouldn't even know what stores to go into! Tony, you're going to be my personal shopper!" Abby exclaimed as she linked arms with him and headed into the mall, Ziva trailing behind.

Back at headquarters McGee was having a lot of fun setting up new Id's. He had decided on the names Edward and Amy Sutton for him and Abby and was having a great time setting up their backgrounds. He had decided to make himself a famous author seeing as he already was one and could easily know what he was talking about if he needed to discuss his career. Since their killer was hunting house wives, they had decided to give Abby a part time job to limit her exposure to being the new victim. He decided to make her a forensic consult for the FBI, since in reality she had actually assisted with a few FBI cases.

Tony and Ziva were proving to be a bit harder. What kind of job could he actually give Tony that would make him a suit and yet still be believable? He finally decided to make him the CEO of a business. Hopefully if anything came up he could just charm his way out of having to discuss his work. As for names he wanted to give them something that would annoy them. His opportunities to get back at the pair of them were slim and he was still smarting over the prank they had pulled the previous week. He knew there was no way Tony could have come up with that on his own. Besides it was Ziva that had offered him the brownies in the first place, and everyone knew Tony couldn't bake.

While he thought about the names he covered every other bit of background he possible could until all he had left to do was assign them names and create the necessary Id's. He finally decided to call them Eugene and Muffy Rowbottom. Common enough so no one would think twice, but annoying enough for the pair of them. Mcgee chuckled out load as he thought about calling Ziva Muffy. Sure, they would probably kill him later, but for the duration of the case he would get to address them as Eugene and Muffy.

"Something funny Mcgee?" Gibbs asked as he walked into the lab.

"Uh, not really Boss, I was just assigning the appropriate background."

"Eugene and Muffy Rowbottom?" Gibbs allowed a smile to cross his face. "That's some good work McGee. Although I will only say this once, I will not be protecting your ass once this is over."

"Fair enough boss. Was there something you needed?"

"I need you to come up with an appropriate background for myself and Ducky. On the off chance we're going to need to come visit we'll need an excuse to be in the Neighbourhood."

"I could make you Tony's dad boss. Although that would essentially make you responsible for how he turned out, so I could totally see why you wouldn't want to go that route"

"Just do it McGee. Although I'm not going to be a Rowbottom. Change it to Smith."

"But Boss,"

"Do it McGee. I don't want any complaints or I'll make you change the Eugene and Muffy as well."

"On it boss. I'll have your Id's ready for you in about 15 minutes. The moving companies have advised me that we're all set for the big move in tomorrow, and we've gotten the appropriate furniture loaded and ready to go. We'll send someone in to set up minimum surveillance equipment in Tony and Ziva's the day after the move and Abby and I are getting installed with everything we need tomorrow once the moving company is done."

"Good job McGee. Tony and the girls should be back soon and we'll need to get the appropriate rings and whatnot out of Evidence. Make sure you get something nice for Abby McGee. This is her first case undercover for an extended period of time and I don't want her feeling uncomfortable."

"Right, and Tony and Ziva?"

Gibbs smirked. "Get them whatever you want McGee. Just don't give them anything that will blow their cover."

"On it boss." McGee said with a smile as he started down to the evidence locker. He was going to have some serious fun with this.


	4. Wedding Rings

The elevator dinged and opened it's doors and Abby stepped out followed by Ziva. Tony stepped out a second later carrying multiple bags and with a large smile on his face. He had enjoyed their shopping trip much more then either of the women. There was just something so satisfactory about telling Ziva what she could and couldn't buy. At one point Abby had had to step in before Ziva could hit him after he had told her that "No little wife of mine would wear that." He had been threatened to an inch of his life if he ever referred to her as "His little wife" again. He smirked as he walked back to his desk; he had a feeling that this was going to be a fun assignment.

"Oh good, you're back." McGee said as he walked into the bullpen. "I've got everything set up and ready to go. We'll meet here tomorrow morning to ride over with the movers. I've have your new Id's here." He tossed new wallets over to Tony and Ziva.

"Eugene? Are you kidding me McDork? Do I look like a Eugene to you?" Tony ranted once he had opened his wallet. Ziva and Abby started to laugh. "I don't know why you're laughing Sweet Cheeks. Why don't you take a look see at your new name honey?" Tony said deliberately to Ziva.

Ziva opened her new wallet. "Muffy?" She whirled to face McGee. "Muffy?" She stomped over to stand in front of him eyes flashing. "Muffy is a name meant for a blond bambo who has no brain in her head! I am not a Muffy!"

"Uh, it's Bimbo." McGee said nervously.

"I do not care what it is McGee, you will change this and you will do it now!"

"No time for that David." Said Gibbs as he walked into the bullpen. "You're going to have to make due. I need you and Eugene over there to go canvass the neighbourhood. You need to go pop in to your new house and make like you're planning decorating schemes. The sooner this guy sees you move in the sooner he'll make a move."

McGee shot a grateful look at Gibbs and backed away from Ziva. "Uh boss, I took the liberty of setting up an appointment with an interior decorator this evening for Eugene and Muffy Smith. She'll be meeting them at the house at 7."

"An interior decorator!" Abby exclaimed brightly. "McGee do we get an interior decorator too? Do you think she would do a black room? I've never met an interior decorator before."

"Uh sorry Abbs. We want to remain as inconspicuous as possible for only Tony and Ziva get to meet with the decorator. We need to have people see them and know them."

"Well that's no fun." Abby sulked for a moment. "Although it would be less fun to have some deranged murderer coming after me. I really don't know how you can deal with this kind of stuff." She finally said turning to look at Ziva. "Don't you find it creepy to purposely set out to have someone try and kill you?"

"No one's killing anybody." Gibbs said as he took a long drink of his ever present coffee. "You're going to be perfectly safe Abby. Muffy over there can take care of herself."

"I'm not worried about me Gibbs." Abby replied as Ziva narrowed her eyes at being referred to as Muffy. "I just don't want anything to happen to Ziva!"

"Ziva will be fine." Tony exclaimed. "I promise I'll be watching her back the entire time."

"I bet you will." Abby muttered under her breath. Out loud she said "You better Eugene. Or you'll have me to answer to. I'm going to be just down the street you know."

"About that Abby" McGee finally out in. "I have our wedding bands here. Did you want to see them?"

"Do I want to see them? Are roses black McGee? Of course I want to see them!" She rushed over to McGee closely followed by Tony and Ziva who couldn't resist seeing what Tim would pick out for Abby.

McGee pulled a blue Tiffany's box out of his pocket. "I found this down in evidence and I thought of you when I saw it"

Tony leaned in to Ziva and whispered "He thought of her when he saw an engagement ring?" Ziva smirked back at him before turning her attention back to McGee and Abby.

McGee opened the ring box and both females gasped. "McGee it's amazing!" Abby exclaimed quickly taking the rings out of the box and putting them on her ring finger. McGee had picked out a tasteful 1.5 carat Lucinda cut diamond on a platinum ring with a plain narrow platinum band. "Ziva isn't it amazing!"

"They are very nice rings Abby." Ziva replied. "Very practical. Expensive, however they won't draw any attention." She couldn't help but admire how well the rings suited Abby. McGee had done an excellent job at selecting rings that Abby could wear and would love.

"You want to see yours Ziva?" McGee asked after tearing his gaze away from Abby who was still admiring her new rings.

"Give me those McGoo." Tony exclaimed ripping the blue box out of McGee's hand. "Ziva with these rings, I thee wed." He recited as he dropped down to one knee and popped open the box. Both agents' mouths dropped open and then twin looks of revulsion filled there faces.

"What the heck is that McGee?" Ziva finally managed to breath. Both Abby and McGee burst out laughing at the looks on their faces.

"Did you get that recorded?" Abby asked Tim.

"It's all right here." He answered showing her his cell phone.

"McGee, I suggest you tell me what you're thinking before I kill you with this ring!" Ziva exclaimed. Tony was still staring at the ring with a look of disgust.

"Uh, well.."

"It's a ring David. Get over it." Gibbs finally interjected. "DiNozzo why are you on one knee? Something you two need to tell me? And for crying out loud shut your mouth already."

"Gibbs, it's a monstrosity!" Tony pleaded. "It's going to blow our cover for sure. There's no way in hell I would have ever picked out something so hideous."

"He's right Gibbs." Ziva added. "Just look at these!" She walked the rings over to where Gibbs was standing after grabbing them out of Tony's hand, who had finally decided to come up off his one knee.

"Oh for crying out loud. It's just a ring." He exclaimed after taking a look at it. "It's not going to blow you're cover. You're supposed to be rich. Rich people wear big rings."

"It's not just big." Tony spit out. "It's ugly." He and Ziva exchanged looks of panic when they realized that Gibbs wasn't going to cave. McGee had chosen a 4 carat circle diamond set into a platinum band and then surrounded with diamonds. The band had diamonds encrusted the entire way around and was coupled with a diamond encrusted wedding band. "Just looking at it makes my eyes hurt!"

"Let it teach you a lesson then DiNozzo. Never play a prank on a co-worker if you're not prepared for the consequences. Now put those on and get out of here. You have a decorator to meet in an hour!"

Ziva reluctantly placed the rings on her ring finger and then glared at McGee. "Don't think I will forget this McGee." She threatened as she grabbed her stuff and headed for the elevator.

Tony quickly placed his own platinum band on his finger and made to follow Ziva out of the building. "There will be payback McGee. Don't ever think for a second that you'll get away with this one." He gave one last glare at McGee before the elevator doors closed behind him.

"Go home and get some rest you two." Gibbs said before grabbing his stuff and heading for the elevator. "It's going to be a long day tomorrow."

"Well Amy, how about I give you a lift home and we can go over some of our personal details?"

"Sounds good to me Edward. I have to ask though, where on earth did you ever find such an ugly ring?"

"It was in evidence Abbs. A drug dealing case." They shared a grin as they headed for the door.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

**Hey Everyone-**

**I just want to thank you for all the positive reviews. This is pretty much my first actual story and I wasn't sure if it would be any good! As far as the rings go if you want to see what they look like you can go to the Tiffanys website. Abby's was the Lucinda Rectangular and Ziva's was the Jean Schlumberger Engagement ring. (I apologize if you actually like that one.)**

**Anyway keep the reviews coming...let me know if there's anything that sucks or if there's anything you would really like to see in the story~**

**Thanks**

**-Scosh81**


	5. The backyard

"Ziva, staring at that ring is not going to make it any less ugly." Tony said looking sideways at his partner as they drove to their new house. Thankfully Ziva was not driving as she couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the giant ring that was now sitting on her finger.

"I can not help it. It's almost as big as my finger Tony. I have worn plenty of rings in my time undercover, but this is the most attention drawing thing I have ever seen in my life."

"Well, we're supposed to get you noticed. At least it will help with that. Although I have to admit I'm pretty embarrassed to have supposedly picked out something so garish. What kind of guy buys something like that?"

"One who is overcompensating for something else I think." Ziva replied as she finally took her eyes off the ring and smirked at her partner. "People are going to wonder what you're overcompensating for."

Tony looked indignant. "I can assure you that I don't have anything to overcompensate for Sweet Cheeks. If I ever picked out something like that it would be because that's what you wanted. I'm nothing if not considerate." He smirked back.

Ziva snorted. "Whatever you need to tell yourself Hairy butt."

"Can you please not refer to me as a hairy butt? Honestly it's not going to do anything for my ego and you're supposed to be a stepford wife here."

"What is a stepford wife?" Ziva asked with a frown.

"It's kind of creepy to be honest with you." Tony replied. "You'll be the perfect wife. You'll stay home and cook and clean, you'll have dinner ready for me every night when I get home. You'll never challenge anything I say and you'll succumb to my every will and desire."

Ziva looked horrified. "You can not be serious." She shuddered "I will play my part in public Tony. I would not want to compromise for a second our assignment, but do not think that I'm going to play the dutiful wife when we're alone!"

"Well Sweet Cheeks I hate to be the one to tell you this, but once we've got his attention there's a really good chance he's going to bug our place."

Ziva leaned over and smacked him upside the head.

"Ow! I'm driving here you know. What the heck was that for?"

"That was for everything you're going to make me do that I'll hate. It was a pre-emptive strike. If you do anything too horrible you can count on pain after this assignment as well."

Tony gulped. "Oh come on. Give me some credit here. I like you better when your feisty anyway." He said with a leer.

Ziva rolled her eyes. "We're here Tony. Lets get this over with for tonight."

They had pulled up to an enormous white house in a gated community. It had a huge front yard with a large bay window overlooking the neighbourhood. Already parked in the driveway was a blue Mercedes where the interior decorator was patiently waiting for them. They stepped out of the car and made there way up to the house.

"You must be Eugene and Muffy." The decorator said with a smile. "My name is Marie and I love your house. This is going to be excellent I think."

Tony smiled at her and put his arm around Ziva while leaning in to shake her hand. "Please call me Gene. Muff and I are so looking forward to working with you aren't we Honey." He said charmingly as he turned to smile at Ziva. "We hear you're the best and my Muffy deserves the best." He leaned over and kissed her cheek.

Marie smiled even wider. "Oh it's so good to see a couple so in love." She turned to Ziva and winked. "And there's nothing better then being able to decorate the house however you want is there Muffy?"

Ziva smiled at her. "I am very much looking forward to working with you Marie. Gene is gone during the day and I'm excited to get this house decorated. Shall we go do a walkthrough?"

"Lead the way Honey." Tony said as he graciously extended his arm allowing the women to walk in front of him. As they walked up to the house he couldn't help but compare the two women. It wasn't so long ago that Marie would have been his type. She was blond and beautiful, however he couldn't help but notice that Ziva had a little something extra. Maybe it was the knowledge that she could take him in a fight, but either way he found that he wasn't attracted to Marie at all. His eyes kept wandering back to his partner and he found that he was going to enjoy playing her husband.

Ziva's pulse was racing. She hadn't expected the kiss on the cheek from Tony and it had thrown her for a loop. She was supposed to be over him. A simple kiss on the cheek shouldn't have affected her like that. She was trained Mossad and she had played many men's wives undercover. The most heated of kisses had never affected her like that small kiss on the cheek. For the first time in her life she was scared of her undercover assignment. Being married to Tony was going to be hard on her. She had to find a way to detach herself from this assignment or they could both end up dead.

Tony unlocked the door to the house and allowed both women to enter before him. Marie let out a gasp once she was inside.

"Oh look at the structure of this house." She exclaimed. "It's absolutely gorgeous. Muffy do you have any idea what kind of color schemes you're wanting?"

Tony gave a grin as he watched Ziva and Marie walk around the house planning colors and schemes. He was happy to leave them to it. He had no desire to decorate a house he was only going to live in for a short time. "Muff, I'm going to head out to the back yard for a little bit." He said to Ziva a short time later. "I'll leave the house in Marie and your capable hands." He smiled at Marie and said "Cost isn't an issue, you just help my Muff here plan what she wants." He found that he couldn't resist leaning down to kiss Ziva briefly before heading outside to the backyard.

Once he got outside he whistled. It was a dream come true. There was a giant pool in the yard with a basketball court off to the side. A giant outdoor grill was off to the left side of the patio and a hot tub was off to the right. "Wow" he muttered to himself. "DiNozzo this is the best assignment you've ever been given!" He quickly went back and started to explore the giant yard.

Meanwhile inside the house Ziva was ready to scream. It was just like DiNozzo to take off and leave her with the painful task of decorating the house with Marie. She had quickly learned that while Marie had decorated several houses in this area, including one of the victim's homes she had no useful information to share, and now Ziva was left to plan color schemes and furniture arrangements. After what felt like forever Marie said she would be back the day after the next with some color swatches and fabric samples and Ziva walked her to the door.

"Thank you so much Marie for all your help. I'm going to enjoy working with you." She said at the door.

"Oh the pleasure is all mine Muffy!" Marie responded brightly. "I look forward to helping you plan your new home. Have a good night and good luck with your move tomorrow." She finally said before heading back to her car and pulling away.

Ziva went back into the house and sat on a step for a minute. She was exhausted. Her mind drifted back to the kiss Tony had given her before going outside. How on earth was she ever going to get through this? She couldn't very well tell him to back off on the displays of affection as it would both cause him to start thinking and cause him to just give them out all the more for the sole purpose of annoying her. She was just going to have to deal with it. If she was completely honest with herself she could admit that she enjoyed them. Too much for her own good.

She got up and wandered out to the back yard. She took in the hot tub, the outdoor grill and the pool and noticed the absence of Tony.

"Gene where are you?" She called out.

"I'm up here Muff." She heard him answer in the direction of some large trees in the back of the yard.

She wandered out to the trees and still couldn't see Tony anywhere. Suddenly she felt an acorn drop on the top of her head and looked up. Tony was up in a rather large tree house that had been built into one of the trees.

"You need to come up here Muffy." He said with a large grin. "This thing is completely awesome!"

Ziva rolled her eyes. "Leave it to you to find a tree house." She muttered. "How am I supposed to get up there?"

"There's a ladder over there." Tony said gesturing to the side of a large oak tree.

Ziva walked over to the ladder and started climbing. Once she had nearly reached the top Tony offered her his hand and helped to haul her up the rest of the way. She lost her footing and crashed into him. They stood there for a moment each relishing the feeling of being so close and neither one wanting to be the one to take a step back.

Ziva finally backed up a step and started to look around. "This is the perfect stake out spot" she finally muttered eyes wide. "We can see all the neighbours' back yards from here."

DiNozzo shook his head, more shook up by the close contact then he wanted his partner to know. "I know it's great." He said with a grin. "Gibbs and probie can have little sleepovers up here to watch the neighbour's yards."

Ziva glanced down at her watch. "Tony it's getting late. We should get going as tomorrow is going to be a long day."

"All right, let's head out. I wouldn't want my little Muffy to be cranky on moving day." Tony answered.

Ziva just shook her head and headed down the ladder in the tree quickly followed by Tony. Both agents just stood and stared at the backyard for a few minutes.

"You know Tony, this might not be so bad after all." Ziva said with a small smile as she really took in the pool for the first time.

"Yep." Tony said as he threw his arm around her shoulders. "It doesn't get any better then a backyard like this."


	6. Amy Sutton

The next morning came much earlier then the team would have liked. They had decided to hold off on moving Abby and McGee in for a couple of days so that Tony and Ziva could get established in the neighbourhood. Abby had been a little disappointed as she had really wanted to get into undercover mode as soon as she could. Secretly she was sure at any moment that Gibbs was going to pull her from the assignment, with some lame excuse about how she should stay in the lab where she was safe. So every day they held off on moving herself and Tim into the neighbourhood was going to be complete torture for her.

Tim was glad he wasn't going to have to help with moving Tony and Ziva into their new place. Since he and Abby would be moving in later in the week they couldn't have the movers seeing him helping Tony and Ziva, so he was back at headquarters planning surveillance with Abby. He had no issues not having to listen to Tony telling him where the heavy boxes would have to go while watching him pick the lightest ones up himself. The only complaint that he had for the day was that it had started at 5:30 in the morning.

"Tony says they had a tree house in their backyard that's perfect for spying on the neighbours McGee" Abby said as she wandered over to where McGee was standing. The two of them were in the garage having just sent everyone off to go move Tony and Ziva into there new home.

"We can send in a technical team in the morning to go place some cameras in the tree" McGee answered. "I would rather do it myself, but I don't have much of a choice seeing as how we're not moving in for a couple of days. Let's head back to your lab to check the feed on the mini cameras."

They had placed camera pins on Tony, Ziva and Gibbs hoping to get some shots of the neighbours and anyone suspicious in the area. They didn't really expect their killer to make an appearance for a couple of days, but it never hurt to prepare early.

"Tim, is it hard to keep your cover? I mean, remembering to call people a different name and to remember all the details of your fake life?"

"Uh, you kinda get used to it Abbs. It'll probably be a little hard at first, why don't you start calling me Edward now? That'll give you a few days to get used to it anyway."

"Now that you mention it," she started placing her hands on her hips and eyes flashing, "Amy Sutton? Are you going to admit that I'm the character in your book now? Because really McGee, why else would you make me Amy Sutton?"

"It was the first name that came to mind!" McGee protested throwing his hands up in the air. "Would you have preferred to be Muffy?"

Abby narrowed her eyes. "Don't think I'm going to just drop this. I want you to admit that I'm Amy Sutton."

"We need to get back to your lab Abby. They're going to be arriving at the house any minute now and Gibbs will kill us if we missed something because we were arguing in the garage."

Abby turned around and headed for the elevator. "I'll get it out of him sooner or later." She muttered under her breath.

McGee quickly followed her and they headed to her lab in silence. They got off the elevator and walked towards her lab. Suddenly McGee reached out and grabbed her arm.

"I'm sorry Abby. If I admit Amy Sutton was partially based on you will you drop this?"

"Fine." She replied. "But I would like it to be known that if I ever get to actually go on assignment again, I would like a new name."

"Fair enough. Look, we're going to be spending a lot of time together for the next while and I would prefer if we didn't spend the entire time arguing."

"Ok." Abby responded, "I have something better for us to discuss anyway. How are we going to get Tony and Ziva to declare they're undying love for each other?"

"Not this again!" McGee groaned. "I think I would rather be arguing."

"That can be arranged Edward." Abby bit out.

"You know what, on second thought; I'd rather discuss Tony and Ziva. Although I really think you're going to be disappointed with this one Abby." McGee walked into the lab and started gearing up all the computers. He chuckled once he had the mini cameras on screen and he realized that Tony was suffering through Gibbs driving him to their new house.

"I don't think so Tim. I think that with the right motivation Tony and Ziva will be all over each other." She too started laughing at the monitors at the sound of Tony asking Gibbs to go slower. She shook her head. "You think he would have learned by now."

"Learned what me dear?" Ducky asked upon walking into the lab. He looked up at the monitor. "Is our young Tony complaining about Gibbs driving again?"

Abby's eyes lit up. "Hey Ducky, how would you like to join in on our bet?" She asked excitedly.

Ducky looked at her intrigued. "A bet on what my dear Abigail?"

"Well Ducky, McGee and I have a bet on the status of Tony and Ziva's relationship."

"Oh dear Abby, do you think this is wise? This reminds me of the last time you made a bet about Ziva; she didn't take to the concept very well. McGee if I do remember clearly, you were afraid to use the men's room upstairs for almost a month. You kept wandering down to my lab after making sure Ziva was no where to be found."

"That's what I told her Ducky. She however didn't have to risk the wrath of Ziva last time and refused to take no for an answer."

"Oh come on you guys!" Abby exclaimed, "It's only dangerous if Ziva finds out. So as long as no one's dumb enough to tell her it's not going to hurt anybody."

"Right." McGee muttered. "You try keeping secrets from the trained assassin."

"Well," Ducky pondered, "What are the details to this bet?"

"I've got 20 that says Ziva and Tony will hook up during this assignment." Abby replied. "The signs are all there; this has been building for months!"

"I'm more inclined to think that Abby's delusional." McGee offered.

"Interesting." Said Ducky. "I think I will be taking Ms. Scuito's side in this particular bet." McGee's mouth dropped open. "I have to admit there's been some mounting tension in the past couple of months, in fact it reminds me of when I was back in Scotland, and I fancied a young lady who…"

"Seriously Duck?" McGee cut in. "You really think that Tony and Ziva are going to hook up while on assignment?"

"Well Timothy, I certainly wouldn't be surprised. Two people who are that attracted to each other and forced to live with each other are bound to give in to temptation eventually."

"I think I've entered into an alternate reality." McGee said while shaking his head.

"Well," Ducky said, "Good luck to the both of you. You had better hope that Gibbs doesn't find out about your bet, or you'll have worse then Ziva to deal with. An angry Gibbs is worse then a grizzly bear." He said with a smile as he walked out of the lab.


	7. Moving In

Tony got out of the car as soon as he could once it had stopped in their new driveway.

"What's wrong Gene?" Ziva asked with a grin. "Surely your fathers' driving hasn't affected you that much?"

Tony glared at her as Gibbs got out of the car. "You know how it is Muffy darling." He said as she grimaced at the Muffy. "I just don't do well in the back seat of any car for road trips."

"Cut it out you two." Gibbs stated. "As soon as the movers get here with the truck we'll get this show on the road. And I want no whining from you Eugene; you'll lift what I tell you to lift."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say dad." He replied as he walked over to Ziva and threw his arm around her shoulder. "Just as long as my Muffy here doesn't have to do too much heavy lifting." He said with a smirk.

Ziva and Gibbs both narrowed there eyes at him. Ziva as she was opposed that he would assume she wouldn't do any heavy lifting and Gibbs at the arm that was tossed casually over Ziva's shoulder. He noticed she didn't move away from the contact. He was going to have to keep his eye on these two.

Gibbs' eyes narrowed even further when Ziva leaned in closer so she could issue a threat in Tony's ear.

"I'll lift what I want, when I want dear Gene, don't even think about telling me what I can lift."

Tony smirked and whispered "Stepford wife" into her ear before quickly slapping her bottom and stepping away.

Ziva's eyes narrowed in anger and Gibbs quickly walked over to Tony and slapped him upside the head.

"If I ever see you do that to your partner again" he whispered dangerously "I won't stop her from performing whatever kind of torture she can dream up when we get back to the office."

Tony's face blanched as he glanced over to Ziva nervously. Thankfully he was saved with the arrival of the moving truck and movers who were just showing up. "Well, let's get this show on the road." He muttered as he headed towards the movers.

The morning progressed pretty slowly, with Ziva directing the movers where to put the boxes and Gibbs and Tony assisting with carrying the various items of furniture they had decided would be necessary to a couple moving in. They had decided not to bring everything as that would give them the excuse to go out shopping and to be seen in the area.

It was early afternoon before any of the neighbours started to show any interest in the new couple moving in. Ziva was standing out in the driveway watching the movers bring in the last of the boxes and Tony and Gibbs were bringing more items into the house. A couple walking up the driveway caught her attention and she walked out to greet them.

"Welcome to the neighbourhood." Offered the male with his hand outstretched. "I'm Mark Bird and this is my wife Joanne. We live in the house next door." He said gesturing to the house on the right.

"It's nice to meet you." Joanne offered. "We're glad to see someone finally moving in."

"We're glad to be moving in," Ziva replied as Tony and Gibbs stepped out of the house. "I'm Muffy and this is my husband Gene and my father in law Nathan." Tony walked over to Ziva and once again placed his arm around her shoulders while extending his hand to Mark and Joanne.

Gibbs shook his head a little before also walking over to Mark and Joanne to shake their hands. "Have you two lived in the neighbourhood long?" He politely inquired while trying to discreetly pump them for any information they may have.

"We've been here for about 5 years." Mark answered "and we absolutely love it don't we Jo."

"Oh, we sure do." she replied with a grin. "It's a great place to raise a family. It's mostly pretty quiet however everyone looks out for everyone else. Do you have any children?"

"Not yet." Tony replied with a grin, "However now that we've found such a great neighbourhood maybe it's time we start trying. What do think Muffy?"

Gibbs had to chuckle a bit at the look that appeared on Ziva's face. The idea of children had apparently thrown her for a loop but she quickly recovered and answered with a smile of her own.

"It's certainly something we can discuss honey." Her grin turned a little more calculated. "I would love to have your children."

Tony's smile seemed to falter a bit as he realized he had lost the upper hand. He threw a look to Gibbs who seemed to be very amused at the whole interaction before turning back to Mark and Joanne.

"How about you, do you have any children?"

"We do." Joanne proudly answered. "We have 3 wonderful children." Mark shook his head and grinned at his wife.

"Don't get her started or she'll never stop." He said with affection. "You'll wish you never asked."

"I'd love to meet them." Ziva replied. "You'll all have to come over for dinner once we get moved in."

"We'd love too." Joanne replied. "We should go and let you get settled in for now through. Is there anything we can do to help?"

"I think we've got it covered." Tony answered "But thanks for the offer. Why don't you guys come over for dinner the day after tomorrow? We should at least have the dinner room and kitchen settled by then."

"We don't want to be an intrusion." Mark replied.

"Oh no." Ziva exclaimed. "Really, I love to cook and we would love to have your family over for dinner. It would be good to make some new friends."

"We'll be there then." Joanne said with a smile. "Please let us know if there's anything at all you need." They gave a waive and then headed back to their house.

"Good Job." Gibbs said once they were out of earshot. "They seem friendly enough and that should help getting you established in the neighbourhood. Neighbours talk to other neighbours."

"Well, let's get these movers out of here and set up shop." Tony said with a leer to Ziva. "We still need to go shopping for a new bed."

Ziva just rolled her eyes and turned to Gibbs. "Is there anything else you need us to do before we go shopping?" she asked with a shudder.

"Yeah, I need you two to go register at the country club. Remember to play the dutiful wife Ziva. You can kill DiNozzo once this is all finished."

Tony grinned at Ziva's shudder. "Relax sweet cheeks. It's won't be that bad. You are after all married to me."

"Remember DiNozzo," Gibbs stated "Make her life miserable and I'll make your life Miserable. Now take me back to headquarters and pick up your other car."


	8. The Country Club

"That was horrible." Ziva said to Tony as they left the country club and headed out to their car. "What kind of requirements are those anyway?"

"Well Sweet Cheeks, checking the financials of a couple is pretty standard for a country club, the questions about our uh, personal life were a bit strange though. Even for me."

"I am just glad that we passed and that it is over. Unfortunately I do not look forward to going back there for any reason."

"Well you'll have to buck up. We're going to have to come back fairly often seeing as how this is where our friendly neighbourhood killer picks his victims."

"That doesn't mean I have to like it." She replied as Tony came around to open her car door. Before letting her in he quickly leaned in and kissed her.

"Someone's watching." He whispered as he leaned in to kiss her again. He had meant to keep the kiss simple, just a quick peck before opening his wife's door, but found he couldn't draw away. Much to his surprise, Ziva didn't seem to be breaking off the kiss either and it quickly turned into more then it should have been.

Ziva was disgusted with herself and yet she couldn't seem to break the kiss. She knew it meant nothing to Tony, he was after all a notorious playboy and a kiss to him was more then likely just a kiss, however she found herself yearning for something more. The kiss seemed to go even deeper before she finally found some hidden internal will and broke it off.

Tony found himself surprised with the intensity of what had just happened, and even though he knew she was trained for these situations and that the kiss was just a kiss to her, he couldn't help but be touched by it. Instead of pulling away he leaned his forehead against hers while he caught his breath.

They looked into each other's eyes for a few seconds before the moment became more awkward then they wanted to deal with. Tony quickly opened Ziva's door before walking around to the side of the car to let himself in.

It had given him the few seconds he had desperately needed to get his thoughts under to control so when he got back in he turned to Ziva and said "You ready to go bed shopping Muffy?" while wiggling his eye brows at her.

Ziva was glad he was back to joking. Tony joking about sex was a Tony she could handle. What had just happened outside the car had unnerved her, as she had seen something in his eyes that she didn't recognize and didn't know how to deal with, and she was glad to be back on familiar ground.

"Bring it out Gene." She replied in her most seductive voice and was surprised when Tony started laughing.

"I think you mean bring it on, although bring it out certainly has some interesting connotations. Especially in that voice."

Ziva huffed. She didn't like it when she got things wrong unintentionally however it wasn't long before she was smiling.

Tony pulled out of the parking lot and headed towards the outlet malls.

The killer watched them drive away from his vantage point in the country club. He was intrigued by the new members. The male was very confidant almost cocky, and he knew that he was the type of man whose wife would stay at home to tend the house and to cook his dinners. However what surprised him was that he didn't seem controlling of his wife. He seemed to respect her and the kiss he had just witnessed showed that there was a lot of heat between the couple. It could be fun to destroy them. He would keep an eye on the new couple.

Tony pulled the car into the parking lot at the furniture outlet store. The ride over had been quiet but not uncomfortable. Both agents were pondering the kiss and what it meant for their relationship. Both had enjoyed it and both were convinced the other thought nothing of it.

"Ready to go sweet cheeks?"

"As ready as I'll ever be I guess." Ziva climbed out of the car and headed towards the entrance doors. Tony quickly came around and grabbed her hand before heading in with her. At her look he simply shrugged his shoulders. Far be it for him to admit he liked the contact with her.

Ziva shook her head before entwining her fingers with his. If they were going to do this then they should at least be doing it right she reasoned with herself. Although she could at least admit to herself that this assignment was going to be the end of her resolve to not feel anything for her partner. It had only been one day and already she found herself craving his touch.

As soon as they walked through the doors they found themselves accosted by a rather large woman who was extremely eager to see them.

"Hello, I'm Marge. Is there anything I can assist you with today? We're having some really good sales right now and I'd be happy to assist you with looking around."

Ziva found herself completed non-plussed and was thankfully saved by Tony answering the woman.

"My wife and I have just moved into a new home and we need to purchase a new bedroom set." He said with one of his most charming grins.

"Oh how wonderful." Marge exclaimed. "We have just what you're looking for. Follow me."

Tony just grinned and shrugged his shoulders before following the salesperson deeper into the store. Ziva sighed and then followed him. She had a feeling that this was not going to be her idea of fun.

"Do you have anything in particular in mind?" Marge asked once they had finally reached the bedroom section.

"A King size bed." Ziva quickly answered. This was going to be bad enough; if she was going to share a bed with Tony then she needed all the space she could get. Tony looked at her and grinned. She glared back at him as if daring him to contradict her.

"My Muffy likes her space." He said to Marge with a wink. "Do you have anything in darker woods?" He asked Marge as she turned red at his wink.

Ziva couldn't help but roll her eyes when she saw how the poor sales lady was responding to Tony. Heaven help the poor woman he ever does settle down with. She thought to herself as her heart gave a pang. She frowned at the direction her thoughts were taking her.

Tony noticed his partner's frown and couldn't help but wonder at the cause of it. He quickly picked out a bedroom set with no help from Ziva and then decided that picking out a mattress would be more fun.

"Marge, what do you have for mattresses? We're going to need a new mattress set as well."

"Well you two just follow me! We'll have you set in no time." Marge quickly led them over to the mattress display. "Now do you want soft or firm?"

"Soft" Tony said at the same time that Ziva replied "Firm."

"Well, this should be interesting." Marge said with a smile. Why don't you lie down on some of them to get a feel for one you both like?"

Tony quickly took this idea to hart and climbed up on the first mattress he came too. "Bouncy." He said as he bounced a little on the bed. "Come on up, Muffy. You need to give this a try."

Ziva was not thrilled at the idea of trying out mattresses however she could hardly say no in her current position so she tentatively climbed up on the Mattress next to Tony. Once she had climbed up Tony gave a little bounce that sent her sprawling into his chest.

"What do you think Muffy?" Tony asked. "How do you like this one?" He said with a lopsided grin and a twinkle in his eye.

"It's fine Gene. If you like it I like it." She responded with a glare while thinking how much she would love to kill her partner.

Tony was having too much fun however and made her try another 5 mattresses before finally settling on one.

By the time they had purchased everything they needed with the promise that it would be delivered later that evening it was supper time.

They mutually agreed that it would be a good idea for them to go have dinner at the country club so that they would have the chance to be seen. As much as Ziva hated the thought of going back there she knew it would be necessary to draw out their killer.

After going home to change they made their way back to the country club and once again Tony held her hand as they walked inside. They both knew that if there was one spot where their cover would be most important it would be there, and so they immediately played to their roles as the CEO and the housewife.

When the waiter came around to take their order they made sure that Tony ordered for Ziva. She was somewhat comforted when she realized that he knew what she liked, and that she wouldn't have to pretend to like something she hated.

Tony knew this was difficult for Ziva. Control was something she didn't like to give up, so for her this assignment was something akin to torture. He didn't blame her; if the roles had been reversed he would have been extremely uncomfortable however she hid it well and he was secretly proud of her.

After dinner they headed home, they needed to be there when the furniture arrived and they were both rather exhausted from the Day's events. Naturally the car ride was once again silent and once they pulled up to their driveway they both got out of the car and headed in.

Tony got to the door first and stopped in his tracks. Ziva promptly ran into him and was about to tell him off for stopping when she saw the note attached to their door. Printed in Bold letters on red paper were the words "I'm watching you."

Tony whipped out his cell phone and hit speed dial number 2. "Dad, we've made contact." Was all he said before hanging up.


	9. Watching

Ziva was exhausted. After they had discreetly bagged and tagged the letter the furniture had arrived and they had spent the next couple of hours setting up their new bedroom. They had no idea if the house was bugged as they wouldn't be able to get a team in to sweep until the morning, or risk blowing their cover, so they were playing the happily married couple, who were confused about the note on their door. She wanted nothing more then a long bubble bath and then to retire to her own bed, however that wasn't going to happen for obvious reasons.

"You look exhausted honey." Tony said as he came up behind her and started rubbing her shoulders. "Why don't we head to bed?"

Tony was concerned about his partner. She looked absolutely drained, and he thought they could both do with some sleep. He at least had the knowledge that he could get up the next day and go into work; they knew that the killer watched the houses; however he never followed the husbands, so Tony had the luxury of heading in to headquarters during the day. Ziva however was going to have to stay at the house to unpack and make friends with the neighbours. He didn't envy her the task of staying there. She was going to go stir crazy after a couple of days.

"I just want to unpack a few more boxes." She answered as she unconsciously leaned in to Tony's touch. She had to admit that the shoulder rub felt amazing.

Tony could feel Ziva starting to relax so he dared to contradict her. "I think we're done for tonight sweet cheeks. You can keep unpacking in the morning." He offered his hand to help her up from the floor. "Come on, it's off to bed for you."

Normally Ziva would have hurt Tony for daring to tell her what to do, however she was still restricted to playing the dutiful wife so she settled for glaring at him while allowing him to help her up. She decided that she wanted to get even so once she was up she stood so close they were almost touching and then leaned in to ask "Hairy Butt, did you unpack the pyjamas?"

Tony visibly gulped. He hated when she played on him like this. He was after all a guy, she knew that. And she was hot. He couldn't help but react when she stood so close and he could feel her breath on his face. He decided to up the ante.

"You won't need them sweet cheeks." He said leaning in just a little bit more. He gave her his famous leer to call her bluff. Usually after the leer he could get her to back off. It was game they had played more then once, although truth be told he was starting to long for the day when one of them wouldn't call the other's bluff.

Ziva took a step back. She wanted nothing more then to step forward and crush herself against Tony; however she knew it was a game to him, and she didn't want to be the one who broke the rules.

"I'm sorry hairy butt; however I am just too tired tonight. I'm afraid it will have to be a pyjama night after all."

Something like disappointment flashed quickly in Tony's eyes before he quickly schooled his face into a smirk.

"That's too bad sweet cheeks. I guess we'll have to break in the house some other day. And I did unpack the pyjamas. They're in our new drawers."

Ziva gave Tony a grateful look before heading upstairs to change into her pyjamas.

Tony just stood there for a moment needing to get some control back. He shook his head ruefully. It was going to be a long night with them sharing the bed. He only hoped he didn't do something to embarrass himself or he would never live it down.

Meanwhile back at headquarters Gibbs was informing McGee and Abby that he wasn't going to need them to go undercover after all.

"But Gibbs! I really wanted to go. Look I even still have the rings Timmy gave me." Abby complained as she held up her hand to display the wedding rings that McGee had given her. Gibbs raised one eyebrow at McGee who simply shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm sorry Abs. But I need McGee to go in as the tech guy. I need someone I can trust to sweep for bugs and to set up surveillance in the backyard. I promise you can go visit Ziva soon, besides the killer has already made contact so things are rolling more quickly then we anticipated. I don't want you getting hurt Abby."

"You know," Abby replied, "I'm not a 5 year old that needs to be protected. I fought off the crazy lab assistant on my own, not to mention the time I was kidnapped. Besides Ziva taught me how to use a gun."

McGee visibly shuddered at the thought of Ziva teaching Abby how to use a gun. That's all they needed in the office were two crazy ninja chicks.

"I'm sorry Abby but it's not going to happen." Gibbs said resolutely. I'm going to need you here tomorrow once McGee brings back our letter. I need you here Abby. I don't want anyone working this that isn't the best." He kissed her on the forehead and walked out of the lab.

Abby whirled to McGee. "This isn't fair McGee! I never get to do anything fun. I wanted to go play house!"

"Tell you what Abbs, keep the rings and you can pretend we're married when you go and visit Ziva. You can even keep all the fake ids. The only thing that will have changed is we're not living down the street. You get all the benefits without being in any danger and you can sleep in your own bed. It doesn't get any better then that."

Abby appeared slightly mollified. "I still don't think its fair." She finally bit out before conceding defeat.

"I'm sure Gibbs will make it up to you Abby." McGee said as he walked over and gave her a hug. "He wouldn't have pulled you unless it was necessary."

"It's always necessary." Abby muttered while hugging him back.

"Come on Abbs, it's getting late. We should go home."

"Thanks Tim."

"For what?"

" For making me feel a bit better. You're a good agent. Don't ever let Tony tell you otherwise." Abby said with a grin.

McGee's ears flushed pink as they walked out of the lab.

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He found the new couple intriguing. He had learned there names were Eugene and Muffy, and despite the heat between the couple that were currently just sleeping. He would have thought they were setting him up, except for the way they had curled around each other as they slept. You couldn't fake that kind of intimacy.

He had run a background check and had learned that Eugene was the CEO of a shipping company and just as he had thought Muffy stayed at home. Just thinking about it filled him with rage. She would be his next victim, of that he was sure. All he had to do was plan, he could be patient, there was going to be something different about this one he could already tell. His blood started humming as he packed up his stuff and started off for home. He was going to enjoy this.

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**Sorry this chapter is kind of short. I'll update soon I promise!**


	10. Pictures

Ziva woke up the next morning warm, comfortable and confused. She knew instantly that she was undercover and sleeping in the same bed with Tony, what confused her was how right the sleeping arrangements felt. She was not used to feeling comfortable on undercover assignments. She decided that she needed to get out of Tony's arms as quickly as she could, before she became any more emotionally involved then she already was. The moment she started to move his arms tightened around her and he started muttering in his sleep. Not clearly enough for her to decipher what he was saying, but enough for her to know he was still asleep. She decided that it wouldn't kill her to stay in his arms for a few more minutes, and no one would ever find out about her weakness. Slowly her breathing slowed and she returned to slumber.

Tony gradually awoke and his first thought was how comfortable he was. Unlike Ziva he wasn't trained Mossad and so he was disoriented as to where he was. Gradually his mind filtered in the bits of information he needed and he felt himself absurdly pleased with the fact that it was in fact Ziva he was curled around and that she hadn't shot him in his sleep. He then noticed that she was snoring softly, and so he decided that he had better get up before she realized that they had curled together during the night, and decided that it was his fault and that he needed to be shot. As he started to disengage his grip from around her she woke up and abruptly turned to face him.

"Uh, Good morning sweet cheeks. Sleep well?" Tony asked a bit nervously. Much to his intense delight and surprise Ziva's cheeks turned a little pink.

"I had a sufficient amount of sleep." She muttered. She knew she was blushing and she hated herself for it. She didn't blush; she was Mossad for crying out loud. Tony was going to figure out something was going on and he would tease her about it unmercifully and she would be forced to kill him.

Tony scrutinized his partners face and wisely decided to not pursue the fact that he was curled around her and that she was blushing. He couldn't however; stop the giant grin from making its way across his face. "You ready to face the day sweet cheeks?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." Ziva quickly responded before detangling herself from her partner's arms and getting out of bed. She felt the loss immediately but settled herself by insisting that Tony had no idea she was uncomfortable. "Are you going into work today Gene?"

"We'll see how it goes. I would like to help you move us in a bit more before I go back to work." Tony replied. "We have our tech guy coming in today to set up our cable and whatnot." His arms felt empty now that Ziva had gotten up so he quickly got out of bed and started changing. It felt a little awkward with Ziva in the room; however they were supposed to be married so he didn't think changing in the bathroom would be conducive to keeping their cover.

Ziva noticed her partner changing and gulped. She didn't know why she found this so awkward: she had seen Tony without his clothes before. She quickly turned away and headed for the door. "I'm going to make us some breakfast Gene." She said on her way out.

Tony just shook his head. He wasn't sure why Ziva was acting so strange, but he wouldn't say no to breakfast. "Can you make some bacon?" He quickly yelled to her retreating back. He smiled as he imagined the eye roll that she just gave.

After changing he quickly walked down to the kitchen to join his partner. She was gathering the ingredients to make omelettes out of the fridge they had stocked the day before.

"Can I help you with anything Muffy?" He asked.

"I've got it Gene." She said to him with a telling look. Gene should not be offering to help his wife make breakfast. "There was a paper delivered last night." She said pointing to a paper on the table. "Why don't you read while I get breakfast ready?"

Tony grabbed the paper and went to sit down at the kitchen table. If he was completely honest with himself he was uncomfortable with the idea of Ziva making him breakfast. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the gesture, it just somehow felt wrong with her being forced to do it. He decided that once the assignment was over he was going to have her over some night and cook for her.

"Breakfast is ready hairy butt." Ziva finally said as she brought over an omelette and placed it on his plate. She then poured him a giant glass of orange juice and picked up her food and came to sit beside him. They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes.

"Muff, what do you have on the go for today?" Tony finally asked. "What do you need me to do?"

"I'm going to finish unpacking. So I'll need you to set up the computers and the TV." Ziva replied. "It won't take too long, so if you need to go into work that would be fine." They had finished eating by this time and Ziva collected their plates and took them over to the dishwasher. Tony winced a little at watching Ziva clean up his mess. Suddenly the door bell rang.

"I'll get it; he called on his way out of the kitchen." Tony opened the front door to find McGee dressed as a cable repair man. "Cable guys here" he yelled back to Ziva after showing McGee in.

As soon as the door closed McGee pulled his equipment out of his bad and promptly began sweeping the house for bugs. Every room was clean until he got to the bedroom where he found a bug placed to hear what went on in that room. He decided to leave it and quickly went back downstairs to Tony and Ziva.

"We're clean except for the bedroom." He explained to the partners. "It looks like that's the only room he monitors."

"Great." Ziva said as she rolled her eyes. "The one room we need to pretend to be married is the bedroom."

Tony wiggled his eyebrows and said with a leer "ready to be Jean-Claude and Sophie again sweet cheeks?"

McGee nervously cleared his throat. He was still unsure about what had gone on in the hotel room back on that assignment and he really didn't want to know. He also didn't want to tell Abby that the only room bugged was the bedroom. She would insist that she was that much closer to winning the bet.

"Uh, Gibbs wanted me to tell you that he wants that letter. He's going to have Abby go over it. Who, by the way, is very upset that she's no longer moving in down the street, so I imagine she'll be here visiting as often as Gibbs lets her. She seems very eager to pretend to be someone she's not."

"Or is she just very eager to play your wife McGroom?" Tony asked to McGee with a smirk.

McGee's face turned bright red. "I'm sure she just wants to get out of the lab." He quickly responded.

Ziva smacked Tony upside the head. "Stop teasing Timothy." She said.

"Jealous Ziva?" He asked wincing.

"Of what Tony? I do not need to be jealous of your tormenting Tim. I'm the one stuck living with you." She said as she threw up her hands. "Now why don't the two of you set up the TV and Computers and then help me unpack."

"I don't know," Tony said grinning "sound like women's work to me."

McGee's eyes went round as Ziva walked up to Tony and got in his face.

"If it helps I could castrate you." She hissed.

Tony and McGee both winced and quickly told her that they would be willing do whatever she told them to.

The morning passed in companionable silence. Tony and McGee set up the plasma TV that Tony was excited about and then they helped Ziva unpack the random items that had been provided.

McGee let out a chuckle when he came across a box filled with photo albums of the couple along with their "Wedding photos". Tony soon heard him laughing and came over to see what he had found.

"Hey Muffy," he called out eyes wide, "you need to come see this."

After Ziva had wondered into the room they started paging through the albums. Much to their surprise they found that a lot of the pictures of the two of them were actual pictures, a lot of them were surprising as they had never seen them before and hadn't known they had been taken.

There was one of the two of them dressed as Jean-Paul and Sophie, Tony in his suit and Ziva in her green dress, he had his arm around her and they were smiling at each other.

A couple of pictures were from around the office; thankfully you couldn't really tell what kind of office it was. There was a picture of the two of them glaring at each other, pictures of them laughing together, and pictures from various office parties with the two of them dressed up. There were team pictures with the rest of the team photo shopped out, pictures of both Tony and Ziva as kids (both were puzzled as to where they had come from) and a picture of the mock proposal Tony had offered back in the bull pen. But the piece de résistance came from the wedding album.

As soon as they opened the wedding album Tony and McGee started laughing and Ziva's mouth dropped open. Abby had clearly photo shopped them into someone else's wedding. She had done a good job, however anyone who knew Ziva and Tony as opposed to Eugene and Muffy would have seen right through it. Ziva's head was on the body of the laciest and poufy wedding dress she had ever seen.

"I am not putting up that picture." She said referring to the framed wedding pictures they found in the box.

"Oh don't worry Muffy," Tony said with an evil grin "I'll put that up for you." He quickly grabbed the picture and headed off to put it on the wall. Ziva got up from her spot where she had been sitting and quickly ran to tackle Tony from behind. McGee, clearly not one to miss an opportunity had pulled out his phone and was video taping the entire exchange.

Tony had expected Ziva and so he barely budged when she jumped him from behind and found himself with his partner hanging from his neck in an almost choke hold trying to grab for the picture. He wasn't too concerned, he knew she could have hurt him if she really wanted to so he kept heading to the wall in their "Family room." Naturally with McGee close behind taping the whole thing to show Abby later. He had almost gotten there when Ziva was pulled from his back and a sharp head slap was delivered to the back of his head. He turned around to see an irritated Gibbs holding on to an embarrassed Ziva's arm and McGee still taping away.

"You want to explain what's going on here?"


	11. Video

"I can't even leave you two alone for 24 hours before you start playing grab ass." Gibbs finally said as he stared down his two agents. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Well boss, I was just about to hang our wedding picture." Tony replied while trying unsuccessfully to hold back a smirk. "I simply thought it would make a nice addition to our cover and Muffy here got a little crazy."

Ziva narrowed her eyes all previous embarrassment forgotten as Gibbs grabbed the picture out of Tony's hand. He couldn't stop the grin that crossed his face as soon as he flipped over the picture and saw Ziva in the poufy wedding dress. "You're right DiNozzo, it'll look good right here." He said as he walked over and hung the picture on the wall.

Ziva's face turned to pure murder as she glared at the two men. "This will not be forgotten" she hissed before stalking out of the room.

Gibbs walked over to Tony and slapped him upside the head again. "Ow boss, what was that for?"

"That was for upsetting your partner DiNozzo. Next time I won't stop her from hurting you. Now go get the gear Abby sent over from out of the car."

It only took a few minutes before Tony came back into the house with all of the equipment that Abby had sent over. Since McGee had confirmed that the only bug in the house was the one in the bedroom they had decided that it was ok to set up their own surveillance equipment in the rest of the house. Abby had even thoughtfully sent over a picture frame with a picture of Tony and Ziva that would cancel out the bug in the bedroom.

Tony wasn't really sure how he felt about that. He had been secretly looking forward to the bedroom scenes that they would have to "pretend" to put on. With the bug nullified there would be no reason for them to have to do anything more then sleep.

He helped McGee put up all the technical equipment they would need before Gibbs decided that it was time for them to head back to headquarters.

"Tony you're coming back in with us." Gibbs declared finally while they were getting ready to go.

"But Boss, I don't want to leave Muffy here by herself." He replied in a playful tone. Ziva promptly elbowed him in the gut.

"I can take care of myself. Besides if we want to maintain our cover you need to leave the house everyday. I'm perfectly capable of going to get some groceries on my own. Besides, I find you annoying today."

Tony schooled his face into a look of mock hurt. "I'm hurt Muffy. Don't you love me anymore?"

"I'll give you hurt DiNozzo, lets go get that letter back to Abby."

Ziva walked the men outside. As soon as they walked outside the front door Tony grabbed her hand.

"I'll only be gone into the office for a few hours Sweet Cheeks." He said to her. "I'll be back before you know it." He said before leaning down to kiss her. Once again the kiss started simple and quickly started to change. It was rudely broken however when Gibbs walked up to the pair and quickly slapped Tony upside the head causing him to bump heads with Ziva. They both turned to look at Gibbs who simply glared at them before grabbing DiNozzo's arm and dragging him towards the car.

"I'll have dinner ready for 7 Gene." Ziva called out before Tony gave her a quick waive and climbed into the car. She stood outside the door and waived as the men drove away. She quickly went back into the house and closed the door and then leaned against it. What was wrong with her? She was quickly becoming worried for her sanity. It had taken Gibbs to break off their kiss. Gibbs for crying out loud. She groaned and slid down the door. This was going to end up a disaster.

Back at the lab Abby was anxiously waiting for the guys to get back. She was growing bored waiting for something to do and she was eager to get started. She heard the elevator ding and eagerly ran out to meet them in the hallway. "Did you bring me my letter?" she asked excitedly to Tony and McGee who had just gotten off.

"You're letter?" Tony asked her with an eyebrow raised. "I distinctly remember it being posted to my front door."

"Whatever." She quickly replied. "It's my letter now. Gimme." She grabbed the bagged letter out of his hand and quickly made her way back into the lab.

"So Gene," she turned to Tony with a grin, "what's living with Muffy like?"

Tony simply rolled his eyes. The last thing he needed was for Abby to realize that he had growing feelings for his partner. She was like a dog with a bone; she'd never give up if she thought there was something there.

"Actually Abbs, I brought you back a video." McGee said with a smug look at Tony.

"What video McGeek?" Tony asked with a confused look on his face. He had been unaware that a video was being filmed when Ziva had jumped him earlier in the day.

"I guess we'll just have to play it to find out." Abby declared excitedly as she plugged McGee's cell phone into her computer.

Tony groaned as he saw them flipping through the photo albums Abby had made them. "You almost got me killed today Abby."

They all watched silently as Tony grabbed the picture from Ziva and headed towards another room. Tony winced as he watched Ziva jump him from behind and he winced again as he watched as Gibbs head slapped him. His mouth then dropped open as he saw the kiss that he gave Ziva outside of the house. He whirled to McGee, "You taped that?"

"Aww, Gibbs." Abby said as she watched Gibbs break up the kiss. "Why did you have to do that?"

Tony then whirled to face Abby. He narrowed his eyes at her. "What?" she asked him innocently. "It looked like a nice kiss."

McGee chuckled at the look on Tony's face. He didn't doubt that it had been a nice kiss and both Tony and Ziva had looked a little unsettled after it. He decided to spare Tony from Abby.

"Hey Abbs, we need to get that letter processed before Gibbs gets down here."

"Right," she responded as the grin quickly disappeared from her face. "The letter." She quickly pulled it out of the bag and started running some tests. "Well, there's no fingerprints." She finally responded a few minutes later. "But we knew there wasn't going to be. It'll take more time to see if there are any chemical traces on it or anything else we can use." She said to the guys with an apologetic look on her face. "I'll keep running some test but I really don't think that the letter is going to tell us anything."

"Thanks Abbs." Tony said, "I'll go inform the boss." He turned away and headed out for the elevators.

Abby whirled to face McGee eyes wide "Did you see that kiss?"

"Well I was there." McGee answered dryly. "I thought Gibbs was going to kill them."

"Gibbs is going to ruin everything." Abby said shaking her head. "They need more alone time without Gibbs there." She looked slyly at McGee.

"No way Abbs. I'm not running interference for one of your crazy schemes. Besides from the looks of that kiss they'll hook up just fine on their own."

"We'll see McGee. We'll see."


	12. The present

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He watched her come out of the house and get into the car to pull away. He debated following her before deciding that he didn't need to know where she went today. He was more then a little irked that his listening device had stopped working and argued wither he should go into the house and fix it now that she was gone. He decided that it could wait a few days, watching the house should be fine. Her husband had gone into work a little earlier today and he wanted to toy with her a little before he made any actual moves. He snuck around the side of the house to the rear and got his "present" ready for her. He knew it would unsettle her just as he knew she wouldn't think it was from her husband. They were always so easy these housewives, they always thought the same way. They thought they were better then the other wives who actually went to work. His blood started to heat up, he couldn't wait to see what she thought of her present.

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Ziva pulled into the grocery store parking lot and shook her head to clear it of the thoughts she had been having. She had enjoyed playing with Tony over the picture and she had enjoyed the kiss outside the door way more then she knew she should. It never ceased to surprise her, these feelings of belonging when she was with Tony. And she had to keep reminding herself of the heartbreak she had suffered when he had been with Jeanne and had kept it from her. He couldn't have her heart again. She needed to move on.

She walked into the grocery store and started shopping for the ingredients she would need for supper that evening. She would never admit it to him; however she enjoyed cooking for Tony. There was something very satisfactory in cooking for someone when you knew that they would be appreciative and that they would enjoy the meal. It was one aspect of the assignment that she would miss when it was all over. Maybe she would invite him over sometime when this was all over. She shook her head, that's how you get too involved she lectured herself. If you don't want to get hurt, you don't invite your partner over for dinner.

She was in the produce section when she heard someone calling out for "Muffy." She turned around and saw Joanne Bird with a grocery cart heading her way.

"Joanne, it's so good to see you." Ziva finally said as she smiled at the petit woman.

"How did the move go Muffy? Was there anything you needed? Mark and I would be glad to assist in any way that we can."

"It went well. Thank you for inquiring. We're pretty much all set up and I can't tell you how excited Gene and I are to have your family over for dinner tomorrow night."

"You know Muffy, I was thinking about that, and it should really be Mark and I that have you over for dinner. After all you just moved in. I know we had said tomorrow night, but why don't you come over the day after tomorrow and I'll invite some of the other neighbours and we can have a little welcome to the neighbourhood party."

"That would be great Joanne. Thank you so much for the invite. Gene and I are really looking forward to meeting the other neighbours.

"Oh it's no problem at all. I'm just so glad to have you over. You seem like such a nice couple. With all the tragedy that's gone on in the neighbourhood the past couple of months it'll be good to all get together and have a party. So we'll see you Friday at 8. Does that work for you?"

"That sounds fine Joanne. We'll be there."

"Good job Ziva." She heard in her ear as Joanne walked away. "Meeting the other neighbours is a good step forward." Ziva just rolled her eyes as she heard Gibbs in her ear piece. To be honest she had almost forgotten she was wearing it as it had been silent on the way over to the grocery store. She quickly bought what she needed and headed for home.

"Hey Muff, I hear we're having dinner with the Neighbours." She heard Tony say in her ear as she climbed back into the car.

"Stop calling me Muffy when there is no one around to hear what you're calling me." She hissed back into the microphone that was hidden in a pin she was wearing. She found that she was annoyed with her partner without being sure of the reason. Well if she was honest with herself she knew that she was more annoyed with herself for reacting to his earlier kiss, but she wanted to be annoyed with someone and decided that Tony would make an excellent victim.

"Woohoo, I sure am glad I came into work today. Is it that time of the Month?" He asked before she heard a slap and a muffled grunt.

"Thanks Gibbs." She said as she shifted the car into drive and headed for home. "Have you managed to find anything from the note?"

"Sorry Ziva." Gibbs replied. There were no fingerprints and nothing we could trace to our killer. We're hoping he'll make some type of contact soon though. The letter came sooner then we expected so we're hoping he's latched onto you."

Gibbs noticed that Tony had winced a little at his words. Clearly he wasn't hoping that Ziva was a target as much as the rest of them. In fact as he thought back on it, Tony had seemed overly protective of Ziva for this assignment. He was always protective of her, but lately there seemed to be something more. Perhaps he should talk to Abby or McGee he thought to himself. They would know if there was something going on. He heard the sound of Ziva getting out of the car and focused on the task at hand.

"Uh guys," Ziva said, "There's a present sitting on the doorstep. I don't think I'm going to be able to pick it up without touching it."

"He's probably watching the house." Gibbs replied. "Act normally but don't open it outside. Take it into the house to open it." He looked over at Tony whose eyes had sharpened with concern.

"I'm on my way back Ziva."

"No!" Ziva and Gibbs said at the same time. "You'll blow your cover if you show up at home now DiNozzo." Gibbs Chastised. "Ziva knows how to be careful."

Ziva looked around carefully before picking up the present and heading inside. She had to admit she was a little curious. What kind of present does a serial killer send? She walked inside and placed the present on the kitchen table. "Should I get some gloves or should I open it normally?" she finally asked.

"We're not picking up anything that says he's been in the house." She heard from Gibbs, "Best not to take any chances, go get some gloves on."

She grabbed a pair of gloves out of the kitchen drawer and proceeded to open the present trying to rip as little of the paper as was necessary. She smiled to herself as she thought about how much this was probably killing Tony to wait while she unwrapped it. She angled the package towards the camera that had been installed in the kitchen so that they could watch her unwrap it.

The suspense was killing Tony. He hated the fact that Ziva had gotten a package while he was away and he wasn't there to protect her if something went wrong. What if it was filled with Anthrax? Obviously he knew it wasn't, the killer wouldn't send Anthrax it would take all the fun out of the kill, but he was worried anyway.

Ziva had gotten the paper off and revealed a plain white box. She carefully opened the lid and pushed aside the tissue paper to reveal a blue bikini. She couldn't help the chuckle that escaped. Of all the things she had expected in the box not one of them was a bikini. And a skimpy one at that. She held it up to the camera to show Tony and Gibbs what had been delivered.

Tony's eyes went wide as he stared at Ziva holding up a skimpy blue bikini. He whistled before he could stop himself and Gibbs hand made connection with the back of his head for the third time that day. It still didn't stop the grin from making its way across his face. "So sweet Cheeks, I bet he's going to be watching the pool, are you going to wear that?"

Gibbs groaned at the look on Tony's face. Maybe he should have sent McGee in with Ziva he thought to himself. Heaven knows even he had noticed the tension building between the two partners over the past couple of months. He had just set them up to destroy rule 12 and he had no one to blame but himself. He turned back to the camera to check Ziva's reaction. She hadn't shot DiNozzo down like he thought she would and it concerned him a little.

Ziva thoughtfully considered Tony's question. Did she want to wear this to lure out the killer? "I think I may." She finally said out loud.

"You will not wear that while you are home alone." Gibbs ordered. "We are not close enough if something we're to happen so you're going to have to wait until DiNozzo gets back tonight. You can pretend you bought a new suit for him and that should annoy our killer."

Tony's face lit up like a Christmas tree. He was excited to see Ziva in that suit. Yeah, ok, it had been sent by a crazy killer, but at least the crazy killer had good taste. Ziva was going to look hot. He was still thinking about it and for the fourth time that day Gibbs hand connected to the back of his head.

"That's your partner" Gibbs growled and they both watched Ziva smirk onscreen. Yep, it was going to be an interesting night.


	13. Dinner

Ziva started getting Dinner ready as she knew Tony would be heading back pretty soon. She was glad she had something to do, cooking relaxed her and she was thinking about what was going to have to happen that night. She knew that she was going to have to pretend to have bought a new bikini for Tony, so she knew that they were going to have to fool around in the pool for awhile. She wasn't sure how to feel about this new development. If she was being honest (and she tried really hard to not be) she was excited about the thought of getting physical with Tony. Which meant that she was too far gone. "Damn it." She cursed mildly out load; she had gone and fallen in love with her partner again. Would she never learn? She ruefully shook her head, what was wrong with her. She needed to talk to Abby she decided. Abby could always make her feel better. They hadn't gotten off to the greatest start, but she was now the closest friend Ziva had beside Tony, and she couldn't very well talk to Tony.

She turned towards the camera hidden on the wall. "Tony? Gibbs?" She asked it.

"I'm here Ziva." Answered McGee into her earpiece, "Tony's on his way back and Gibbs didn't want to take surveillance tonight, he was muttering something about 'not wanting to watch this' whatever that meant. Is there anything I can get you?"

"I was wondering if Abby was around actually. I was thinking it would be nice if she could come visit tonight."

"I'm sure she'd be delighted." McGee answered dryly. "I'll let her know you'd like the company. I'll send her over while you and Tony eat dinner."

"Thank you McGee I appreciate it."

"Uh Ziva, what's going on that Gibbs didn't want to watch?"

Ziva smirked up at the camera, "I guess you'll have to wait to find out McGee." She said.

McGee winced. He had a very bad feeling that this was going to be supremely uncomfortable for him. If Gibbs didn't want to watch then it had to be bad, and didn't someone say something about Ziva getting a present from the killer earlier today?

"Ziva, what did the killer send you today?" he finally worked up the courage to ask.

She walked over to the table and held up the blue bikini. "It's very nice, yes?" She would have loved to see the look on McGee's face however she had to make due with the audible gulp she heard in her ear piece.

McGee's face turned bright red and he was glad there was no one there to see him. If she was going to put that on and go swimming with Tony tonight he could totally understand why Gibbs didn't want to be there for this. He felt his collar get tight and he wished that he could be anywhere else but on surveillance duty. This was going to be awkward.

"I'll make sure Abby comes over." He finally muttered quickly and heard Ziva laugh. He heard the sound of a door opening and Tony call out "Honey I'm home" before he quickly disconnected the surveillance. If Tony was there he didn't need to watch Ziva in the house, outside later, he gulped, and maybe he could find a way to watch everything but the pool.

"I'm in the kitchen Gene" Ziva called out to Tony in response to his comment. She had to shake her head, he was simply incorrigible.

"Hey, what's for dinner?" He asked once he had made his way back to the kitchen. Something smelled really good and he was hungry. He noticed the bikini still in the box on the kitchen table and tried unsuccessfully not to smirk. His eyes met Ziva's and she simply raised her eyebrows at his smirk. They both knew what was coming, and they were both looking forward to it, however neither one wanted to admit how much they both wanted it.

"We're having lasagne for dinner. It should be ready in just a few minutes." Ziva finally responded after the stare down had ended.

"Do you want me to set the table?"

"No I can do it. Why don't you go relax? You must have had a long day." She said with a telling look.

"You know, he's not monitoring our kitchen, I can set the table." Tony said. "I hear all the best marriages are made up of a partnership. You cook the dinner, I clean the dinner. As long as we're living together I need to do my share of the housework." He said earnestly.

Ziva turned to look at her partner and noticed the seriousness of his gaze. Her gaze softened when she realized her really did want to do his share. "I've got the table Tony; however you can help with the dishes later." She felt something pull at her heartstrings at the grin he gave her when she said he could help clean up. "By the way," she called out as he went to change his clothes, "Abby is going to be coming over a little later."

She was stalling Tony realized instinctively when he heard that Abby was coming over. She was nervous about the bikini and she was stalling for time. He was fine with that; he thought to himself, he was surprisingly nervous himself. It was like they both knew that something was going to change. He quickly changed his clothes and met her back down in the kitchen. His mouth started to water at the smell and he was super excited to eat.

"That smells so good." He said appreciatively as he sat down at the table. "If I have to play house I'm glad I got you as my housewife." He said with a grin as Ziva brought over the lasagne.

"Eat up, harry butt." Ziva replied with a smirk as she dished out his food. She couldn't help but laugh at the look of genuine bliss that crossed his face as he dug into his food. She found herself absorbingly pleased that he liked what she cooked. There were very few things that made her feel feminine and cooking was one of them. Because of that she had become very good at cooking and she was glad that Tony approved. She found that it was just one more thing that endeared him to her.

Tony had eaten three helpings of lasagne before he managed to groan and push away his plate. "Are you trying to make me fat woman? They're going to have to roll me out of the house when we're done with this."

"I did not force you to eat three plate full's Tony. You have no one to blame but yourself. Besides the last time I checked we had both a basketball court and a pool outside for you to work off you dinner." As soon as the words were out of her mouth Ziva cursed herself for having brought up the pool.

Sure enough the air quickly became ripe with tension as the two held eye contact. Something was changing. They both knew it, and neither wanted to be the one to acknowledge it first.

"We need to talk." Tony finally said.

"I know." She replied.

The doorbell rang. Ziva exhaled the breath she had been unaware she was holding and broke eye contact. "That will be Abby." She said as she got up and headed for the door.

Tony was simultaneously relieved and annoyed that Abby had interrupted. They needed to talk before they played out the pool scene. He both liked and respected Ziva way too much to fool around in the pool without discussing it with her. He knew he needed some boundaries before he let his hormones run away from him. He was after all, very much a man, and that bikini wasn't going to leave too much to the imagination. He sighed and started to clean up the dinner that Ziva had made. His mood picked up a bit however when he realized she had cooked enough for him to take to work the next day. "Ha," he muttered under his breath, "take that McGee!"

Ziva walked to the front door to go let Abby in. She wasn't sure how she felt about the distraction. They needed to talk so that she could be sure she knew where Tony was before they did anything in the pool. Heaven knows there was a really good chance that if things got too carried away she would end up being disgusted with herself in the morning. If she gave herself to Tony and he was just pretending it would completely destroy her. She may have fallen in love with him again, but that didn't mean she would allow him to break her heart without knowledge again either.

"Amy" she said as she opened the door.

"Muffy" Abby cried as she started squeezing the life out of Ziva. "I'm so glad you invited me over to your new house! It feels like since forever since I've seen you!"

"It's been just over a day." Ziva chided gentle as she detangled herself from Abby's grip. "However I am glad that you came. I need to talk to you." She whispered so that Tony couldn't hear.

Abby's eyebrows immediately lifted. Ziva never _needed _to talk about anything and the fact that she needed to talk now, before putting on the bikini was not something that escaped Abby's attention.

"Great, we're long overdue for some good old fashioned girl talk anyway." Abby responded. "Can we kick Tony out somewhere? Oh wait, even better, I heard you guys have a tree house. Can we go talk up there? I've always wanted to have girl talk in a tree house!"

Ziva suddenly found herself thinking that inviting Abby over perhaps hadn't been such a great idea. The idea of sharing her feelings with someone had suddenly lost all of its appeal. And there was always the chance that Abby would tell McGee, who would say something to Tony, or even worse Gibbs.

"Amy" she was finally interrupted by Tony coming into the room. "How's it going? How's Ed doing?" He asked with a twinkle in his eye as he held up her hand to look at the rings she still hadn't taken off. "I see you're still married. Anything you want to tell us?"

Abby narrowed her eyes before slapping Tony in the shoulder. "I came over to talk to Ziva." She said. "We're going to have girl talk in the tree house."

Tony looked at Ziva who avoided his gaze. "In the tree house huh? I don't think we checked that one for bugs."

"Um, Timmy did earlier in the day. He didn't find any bugs so I think we'll be ok." She responded defiantly. She couldn't help but notice that Tony didn't want to let Ziva out of his sight.

"Right, well the killer did drop by to deliver his 'present' so if it's all the same to you ladies, I think you need to stay in the house." At Abby's glare he raised his hands as if to calm her and said "well at least until we have the yard checked for bugs again. What do you think Sweet Cheeks?" he asked turning to Ziva.

"I'm sorry Abby." She said "Tony is right. We'll have to stay inside for our girl talk."

Tony narrowed his eyes and studied the two women before him. "Interesting that whatever it is you have to say you can't say it in front of the killer. Or me." He added as an afterthought. "Wait, are you two discussing me? Or McGoo? Or perhaps one of you has a crush on our boss." Tony was starting to have some fun with this.

"There's only one person around here who is going to get crushed." Ziva said threateningly. Would you care to take a guess as to whom?"

Tony just chuckled at the threat. "Whatever, I'm going out to shoot some hoops. I'll leave you ladies, well" he said turning to Abby "You lady and you temperamental assassin to your girl talk."

Ziva lunged for Tony as he walked out of the room and Abby grabbed her arm to restrain her. "I'm going to kill him." She muttered as Abby continued to hold her back.

"Easy there Ziva. He may be annoying but he can also be useful." She said with a smirk.

Ziva whirled to face Abby. "How much do you already know?"

"About why I'm here? Nothing, but I do have my suspicions. I'm guessing it has something to do with our dear Gene out there. Am I right?"

Ziva sighed and led Abby over to the couch. "I do not even know where to start." She finally said.

"Well it's like my mom always told me." Abby said "Start at the beginning, go to the middle and finish at the end."


	14. Girl Talk

Tony grabbed his gear and headed for the basketball court outside. As a second thought he grabbed his ear piece and mic from the counter before heading outside. He knew the girls would be fine inside and he wasn't concerned for his own safety, however he thought perhaps he could have a bit of a chart with McGee as long as he was being kicked out of his temporary house.

"McGee, you there?" he asked into the mic.

"I'm here Tony. Do you need something?"

"I need to know what the girls are discussing back in the house. I know we have surveillance in there and I know you could hear everything they're saying if you wanted to."

"No way."

"Oh come on McGoo, where's your sense of fun. Aren't you at all curious about what they're talking about in there?"

"It's not worth my life Tony." Secretly he did really want to know what they were discussing. As he had agreed with Abby, he had the video on but not the sound. He could see them talking but he had no idea what they were talking about. He hoped Tony didn't press this too hard or he knew he would cave and turn it on.

"Look McGee, it's only your life we're talking about if you're dumb enough to get caught. Are you telling me that you're dumb enough to get caught?"

"You mean like you got caught with the pictures of Ziva from LA Tony, because I distinctly remember you telling me that she would never find out you had those."

Tony had to wince a little bit. It had been a rookie mistake to have gotten caught with those. But how was he supposed to have known that she would be coming aboard the ship? If he had known in advance she would have never seen them.

"That wasn't my fault Tim. If someone had given me advance warning that they were coming I could have had those down."

"Right Tony, well either way, there's no way I'm eavesdropping on a conversation that Ziva is participating in. No good ever comes out of us doing anything to try and get the better of Ziva."

"Are you still mad about those brownies Probie? Cause if I promise to never do that again will you turn the sound on?"

"No Tony."

"Oh come one, you aren't the least bit curious? Don't you want to know what Abby's talking about? What if she's talking about you? Besides do you know what Gibbs is going to say if he knows you cut the audio?"

McGee shuffled in his seat. He wasn't worried about Gibbs killing him; this was Abby and Ziva they were talking about after all. Everyone knew Abby was the favourite and Gibbs had a softer spot for Ziva then he did for either Tony or McGee. He did really want to hear what they were talking about though, maybe he could just turn the audio on low, Tony didn't need to know it was on, and if it was anything he shouldn't hear he would turn it right back off again.

"I can practically hear you thinking McGoo. Just turn it on already."

"No Tony." McGee strengthened his resolve. Whatever it was the girls were talking about they wanted privacy, and he wanted to live. When Ziva found out he was listening, and Ziva would find out, she was almost as bad as Gibbs, she would make his life miserable. As bad as Tony got, he at least never inflicted actual pain.

"McGee you are a wimp!" Tony shot his ball and made the hoop. The curiosity was killing him. What could Ziva possibly be saying to Abby? He needed to know. Heck, he was her partner, what if it was something that compromised the security of the assignment? It could get her hurt, and he was completely in the dark. He sighed frustratingly and shot another hoop.

Meanwhile back inside the house Ziva had finally spilled everything to Abby. She was acutely uncomfortable discussing this, but she needed some input and she knew that if she swore Abby to secrecy she wouldn't say anything. In all honesty she thought she would rather be tortured then have McGee and Tony find out what they were talking about.

"Are you sure McGee is not listening to this Abby?" She finally asked for about the 10th time in the conversation.

"Ziva relax, Tim is much too much of a gentleman to actually give in to the temptation of listening to our conversation, if Tony was on surveillance though then we would have a problem."

"What do you suggest Abby? What do I do? How do I get over this?"

"Why do you want to get over this?"

"He's my partner Abby. No good can come from this. Besides he's into a new woman every day, he doesn't even know what the word commitment means."

"Oh Ziva, and people call me melodramatic. Look I've seen the way he looks at you when no ones looking. There is most definitely something there."

"Oh I know he finds me attractive that is not an issue. I just want to be more then a lie to him."

"I think you mean a lay, and I understand what you're saying, but I'm telling you he thinks more of you then that. Otherwise he would have already tried that by now. This is after all Tony, if all he wanted was you in his bed he would have gotten you there by now."

Ziva looked affronted. "I think not Abby. No one gets me into their bed without my wanting to be there."

"That's just it Ziva, you really, really want to be there." She said with a grin. "If he honestly tried you wouldn't put up much of a fight."

"What do I do?" Ziva asked in a small voice.

"Look if you want my honest opinion I think he feels the same way and just hasn't realized it yet. He's totally in love with you he just needs to come to the same conclusion that you have, only this is all new for him. He respects you so much he'll try and convince himself it's anything but love, especially after what happened with Jeanne."

Ziva flinched at her name and then squared her shoulders, "I still think my best option is to get over him. Do you have any friends you can set me up with?"

"I don't think so. I'm on team Tiva" Abby said with a smile

"Tiva?"

"Tony plus Ziva equals Tiva. The two of you are bound to get together. We just need to push Tony in the right direction."

"There will be no pushing Tony to anything Abby. She sighed. "I should not even have said anything; I want you to leave this alone."

Abby rolled her eyes. "Clearly you wanted help, and help is what I'm going to give you."

"While we are here Abby, what is going on with you and McGee?"

Abby's face turned bright red. "What makes you think anything is going on with Tim and I?"

Ziva smirked. "One, you haven't taken those rings off since he gave them to you and two your face just gave you away."

Abby shrugged her shoulders, "Nothing. Right now." She said with a grin. "I want to see this bikini everyone has been going on about. Besides I brought over some equipment to do a couple of tests before you put it on. We wouldn't want you to put it on, stun Tony and then drop dead at his feet!"

Ziva led Abby over to the kitchen table where the bikini was.

"Tony cleaned the kitchen?" Abby said with a squeal. She whirled to face Ziva "He is so in love with you!"

Ziva just rolled her eyes. "I thought you wanted to look at the bikini."

"Well yeah, but I mean, this is DiNozzo we're talking about, he cleaned a kitchen for you. A kitchen. She shook her head and then waived her hands at the camera trying to get McGee's attention. "Do you still have you mic and ear piece?"

"Of course."

"Can you tell McGee he can turn the audio back on now."

"McGee are you there?"

"I'm here Ziva."

"You can turn the audio feed back on. We're going to call you on speed dial so you can hear all of us." She walked to the door and called Gene to come inside. "You stink." She said to Tony as he came back inside.

"Well sorry sweet cheeks, if someone hadn't felt the need to gab for a long time I wouldn't be nearly so sweaty."

"It is not my fault you stink. Go take a shower or something."

"Um guys," Abby finally uttered, "we need to get this tested, it's getting pretty late."

Tony and Ziva shared one last glare before turning their attention to Abby who had already called McGee on the speaker phone.

"So I'm just going to test this to make sure there's nothing toxic on any of the seams, not that there's too many seams, there's almost nothing to this thing."

Tony bit back a groan. This assignment was going to kill him. If the assignment didn't then Ziva certainly would. He almost wished Gibbs was on surveillance tonight, at least he would stop him before he did anything too stupid.

"Well" Abby finally said, "The coast is clear. You're good to go with your new suit Ziva."

Ziva felt her heart speed up. She had been hoping that Abby would tell her she couldn't wear it, and then she would have nothing to worry about.

"Abby" McGee finally said, "You're on surveillance with me tonight, apparently we get the night shift and Gibbs is going to take the day shifts."

"Ok Timmy, well I'm going to head out guys, don't do anything I wouldn't do." She said with a smirk. She walked over to Ziva and gave her a hug, "You be careful." She then gave Tony a hug and said "You take good care of her."

"I will Abbs," he whispered back. "She'll be fine."

She then proceeded to let herself out of the house leaving Tony and Ziva to stare nervously at each other.


	15. The Pool

It was Tony that broke the silence first. "Do we want to talk about this at all?" He gulped nervously.

Ziva let out her breath, "I don't know what there is to say. We need to lure the killer out; I'm going to pretend I bought the suit as a housewarming gift for you. You're going to enjoy it and we'll come back in. There's nothing more to discuss."

McGee quickly cut the audio back at the surveillance center. This was a conversation that he knew he didn't want to hear, just as he knew that Abby would want to hear it. He'd have to pump her for information about their girl talk when she got back. He had suddenly developed a gut feeling that he was going to loose this bet and he was going to loose it fast. He grimaced at the thought and then quickly started moving the cameras in the back of the house electronically so that he could see everything but the pool. This was going to be so uncomfortable.

Back in the house Tony and Ziva were still discussing her new suit.

Tony took a deep breath before asking the question that he really needed the answer to. "How much am I allowed to like it?"

Ziva's eyes shot to his and the temperature in the room went up a few degrees.

"I will let you know." She said before grabbing the suit off the table and heading upstairs to change.

Tony shook his head. He was seriously worried about this. He wasn't sure if he started that he was going to be able to stop and he really respected Ziva too much to fool around and then just walk away. In fact he would rather not fool around with her at all. Ok well, that was a lie; he would love to fool around with her, however only if it meant something to both of them. He didn't like the sensation of having feelings for her and her not returning them, what was wrong with him? He was about to fool around with his hot partner in the pool and he was going on about feeling! He so didn't want to do this. But what choice did he have? This was going to be the most exquisite torture he would ever have to endure he knew it. He sighed quickly and grateful he already had his swim shorts on headed outside to jump into the pool. At least he could get some laps in and maybe burn off some of the tension he was feeling before she came out.

Meanwhile upstairs Ziva was hesitant to put on the swim suit. She was nervous, which was absolutely ridiculous. She had done this many times before. In fact she had even been undercover with Tony before. He had seen her naked, so why on earth was she so nervous to put on a swim suit? It wasn't any smaller then the one she had worn in LA. She hadn't thought twice about donning that one. She groaned and stripped off her clothes and put on the blue bikini. There, she thought looking in the mirror, it's on. She kept thinking about what Abby had said earlier, was it possible he was in love with her too? She didn't want to get her hopes up only to be crushed once again. How far was she willing to take this with him tonight? She quickly decided that if she could only have Tony once she wanted that experience. She wasn't going to stop him. In fact, now that she had made up her find she felt really good about her decision. She grabbed her wrap and left her room with a smirk on her face. This was going to be fun.

When she got down to the back door she noticed that Tony was frantically doing laps in the pool. She had never seen him swimming laps before and was surprised at comfortable he was in the pool. She knew him to play basketball, and she had gone with him to the gym on more then one occasion and she had once even gone to a pool with him, but never had she had the occasion to see him swimming laps. She wasn't surprised with the speed he was traveling; he was a very strong man. She felt her blood start humming with anticipation and she stepped out onto the porch.

Tony heard her step out and he stopped swimming to look up at this partner who was now standing at the side of the pool. She had on a wrap over the swimsuit and he thought that perhaps they were going to play this safe after all.

"I bought you a present today harry butt. I thought we could christen the new house." She said in a seductive voice. She couldn't bring herself to call him Gene. If this was all she was ever going to get fine, but she wouldn't ruin in by calling him by someone else's name.

She dropped the wrap and Tony's brain shut down. She had been hot in LA in her bikini but this was something completely different. Here she was standing in front of him, wearing the bikini and an expression that could only be described as 'come hither'. He felt his blood heat up immediately and his hand itched to reach out and touch her. He forced his brain to regain some function and finally replied,

"Sweet Cheeks that could just be one of the best presents I've ever gotten. Did you want to take this inside?"

Ziva's mouth went dry at the look in his eyes. If there was one thing she could be absolutely certain about it was that he wanted her as much as she wanted him, and yet he had just given her an out. She felt her heart warm at the thought that he at least cared enough about her to have given her the out. He didn't want to make her do anything she didn't want to. That steadied her resolve. There was no way she was going back on this one.

"I thought we might start with the pool." She said looking into his eyes and started heading down the steps into the pool.

Tony gulped. He had half wanted her to take the out. He felt his swim shorts start to tent a little, this was actually going to happen. He thought for a moment of McGee and Abby potentially watching them, and casually glanced up to where the cameras were hidden, they were pointed away from the pool. God bless McGee was his last coherent thought before Ziva was standing before him wearing nothing but a scrap of material and that look on her face. Her eyes were telling him she wanted this too, and his brain shut down on the realization that she wanted this as much as he did and then she was in his arms and his lips were on hers.

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He was irate. His blood was seething. How dare that little tramp pretend that she bought the new suit for her husband! Her words had completely destroyed the happiness he felt at seeing her in his gift. Who did she think she was? This one was going to pay, he decided. He watched her and her husband in the pool. Perhaps this time they would both pay. She was his. Than man had no right to be removing his gift from his victim. Patience, he cautioned himself, all things come in time.

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Abby had just gotten back to the surveillance center and noticed that McGee was on edge. He was studying the monitors with an intent she hadn't seen from him and the audio was off.

"Are you ok McGee?"

A look of absolute relief flooded his face when he realized that Abby was back. "Oh thank goodness you're back. I need someone to talk to."

"Why? What's going on McGee?"

"Ah, well Ziva came out in her swimsuit, so I readjusted the cameras to watch the surrounding areas and cut the audio." He stuttered nervously.

"McGee, does this bother you?" she inquired sounding very amused.

"Abby there are some things in life that I am much better off not knowing about. What those two do or don't do is one of those things. How did your chat with Ziva go?"

"Oh no McGee, you are so not changing the subject on me. Aren't you the lease bit curious what they're up to?"

"No."

"Oh come on McGee, we'll turn the audio on just to make sure nothing happens to them. What if the killer snuck up on them and they need backup and we can't do anything because we didn't know about it."

"Nope. Not happening."

"Gibbs would kill you if something went wrong." At this she could see that McGee was wavering just a little bit. So she boldly walked over to the audio switch and flicked it on."

As they didn't have their microphones on as they were in the pool at first all they could here was the water of the pool. Suddenly they heard Ziva let out a moan. Abby shut the audio switch down eyes wide.

"I didn't actually think" she started muttering

"Uh, huh, sure you didn't Abby." McGee countered. "You just wanted some type of proof. Now can we please, please discuss something else or I'll never get over the mental trauma of this!"

"Right, well, uh, do you have any cards?"

Back in the pool Tony was pretty sure he had died and gone to heaven. There was no other explanation for this. Ziva had managed to wrap her legs around his waist and he had trapped her between the side of the pool and his body. Her tongue was in his mouth duelling with his and her hands were fisted in whatever hair she could get on his head. He had one hand on her breast and the other was on her waist. Things were getting heavy fast. He briefly thrust his pelvis forward and Ziva let out a moan. It was this that made him remember where they were and what they were doing. He pulled back a fraction of an inch, and found his partners eyes on him. He could see the hurt in her eyes as she thought he was going to end this.

"Zee he whispered carefully, I don't want this to be a one night stand and I so don't want to do this with some psycho watching." He felt his heart tighten when her face lit up and she leaned forward to press a hard kiss to his mouth.

"Then let us take this inside." She said.

"Are you sure? Because I meant what I said, I don't want a one night stand with you."

"I'm sure Tony. Take me inside." She wrapped her legs even tighter around his waist and he started backing out of the pool while still kissing her. When he reached the steps he shifted positions so that she was riding piggy back and he quickly got out of the pool and headed into the house.

Once back in he let her slide down the length of his body before picking up one of the spare mics and saying "McGee we're back in the house, you can start watching the pool again." Without waiting for a reply he quickly dropped the mic then picked up Ziva bridal style and headed upstairs to the bedroom. He wasn't going to waste any more time.

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**A/N: OK so there's the pool scene you've all been begging for. I even posted it earlier then I was going to just because so many people were asking for it. I hope you weren't dissapointed. Thanks so much!**

** -Kris**


	16. Truce

McGee looked at Abby eyes wide. "Uh, so if they've moved this inside then we should start to canvass the yards for our killer. He'll be out there watching somewhere."

Abby quickly started typing on her computer pulling up whatever images she could with the camera's that they had set up. She focused her searches on the neighbour's yards as she figured the killer wouldn't actually be daring enough to be in their yard.

"Hey Abbs, look at this" McGee suddenly said. Abby turned to look and let out a gasp at what McGee had on camera. There was a man dressed all in black watching the house through a telescope a few yards down. They couldn't make out his face however they quickly started entering everything they could to see if there was anything they could make out about him.

"He's 6'2" McGee. That's all I can get. He's wearing a black hat so I can't even see his hair colour. This has to be him. Who wears a black ball cap at night? Let's call Tony and Ziva to go apprehend him."

"What do we have to go on Abbs? He's wearing black and staring though a telescope? If it isn't him we totally blow their cover and Gibbs will kill us."

"Well Gibbs will kill us if it is him. At least we should call them and get them to go find him. They can stake him out as he's watching the house."

McGee and Abby both turned to look at the phone. After a minute their eyes met.

"Rock, paper, Scissors?" McGee tentatively asked.

"One, Two, Three." Abby called out then let out a whoop when she beat his rock with her paper. "Suck it up McGee, you have to call them."

"This is going to haunt me for months." He muttered as he picked up the hand set and started dialling.

Back in the house Tony had just made it up the stairs with Ziva. He headed to their bedroom not taking his eyes off her face. He couldn't believe this was actually going to happen. His heart was pounding but not from the exertion of having carried Ziva up the stairs. He felt light; for once the universe was the aligning things in his favour. He wanted nothing more then to start a relationship with Ziva. He was grateful that she too wasn't in favour of a one night stand. So ok, he wouldn't have wished for their first time to be on an undercover case where she was probably being stalked by some crazy killer, but they weren't very traditional anyway.

Ziva kept her eyes on Tonys as he carried her up the stairs. Normally she would have protested at the gesture, but she couldn't help but marvel at how safe and almost cherished she felt in his arms. When he had said that he didn't want a one night stand she had felt her heart stand still with the knowledge that maybe, just maybe he wouldn't break her heart this time. Not that she had any intentions on telling him she was in love with him. She was still pretty confidant that if she told him that he would end things in a heart beat under the pretence of not wanting to hurt her.

They finally reached the bedroom and Tony lowered her to the ground letting her slide against his body as he did so. They gazed into each others eyes for a few seconds before he was leaning down and she was straining up and they're lips were fused. He pulled her closer and allowed his hands to roam the wet skin that was bared by the bikini. His touch was setting her on fire and she wanted to pick things up but he continued to move slowly keeping the kiss and his touch feather light. She briefly thought for a moment that he was savouring the experience before frustration had her moaning and deepening the kiss. She brought her hands to his chest, loving the feel of his muscles and he started moving her back towards the bed. Just as her knees reached the bed the phone started ringing.

"Don't answer it." She muttered against his mouth.

"Have to." He answered between kisses. "What if it's Gibbs?" The thought of Gibbs was enough to have them both heading towards the phone. It probably was Gibbs, Tony mused to himself. Heaven knows if anyone knew what they were doing it was probably Gibbs. It wouldn't surprise Tony if Gibbs has set up surveillance in the room himself just to keep them from doing what they were about to do. He groaned when he saw the caller ID.

"This had better be good McDead." He ground into the phone.

"We think we have him on tape." McGee answered nervously. He didn't want to know what they had been doing in the house that had Tony in such a bad mood when he answered the phone. If it had anything to do with the moan they had heard from the pool then he was sure Tony was going to make his life miserable for a long time.

"You think Probie or you know? Because if you just think" He was interrupted when Ziva grabbed the phone out of his hand.

"What do you see?" She asked briskly.

McGee was surprised at how relieved he was that Ziva had taken the phone from Tony. If either of the two of them could handle things professionally it was going to be her.

"We have a guy dressed all in black with a black ball cap staring through a telescope aimed at your house. We can't get any more then that due to the angle and we don't want you to blow your cover but we think one of you should go check it out."

"Where is he?"

"Three houses to your left."

"We're on it." She hung up the phone and looked at Tony. She could tell by looking at him that he wasn't at all thrilled with the interruption. She hadn't been too keen on it herself, but they were on assignment and Gibbs would really not be happy with them if they blew this.

"There's someone watching the house three yards down to our left. We're not supposed to make contact as to not blow our cover but one of us needs to go check it out. I will go."

"Oh there is no way I'm letting you go." Tony replied. "He's after you, I'm going."

"I can take care of myself Tony."

"I know that. But I don't want to take any unnecessary risks." He kissed her lightly on the forehead "I need you here when I get back." He quickly pulled on a pair of jeans over his wet swimsuit and a black T-Shirt. "Stay here." With that he quickly left the bedroom before heading downstairs to grab his earpiece, mic and weapon before heading out the door.

Once she heard the door close she felt her legs collapse and she sat down heavily on the bed. His words had given her some hope that perhaps things could work out between them this time. He seemed to care for her a great deal. She shook her head to clear it of her thought and quickly changed clothes and headed down to the kitchen. She needed to be in contact with Abby and McGee in case something went wrong. She shuddered at the thought.

As soon as Tony had put his earpiece in he muttered "This had better be good McGee."

"Why, are we interrupting something?" Abby responded with a smile in her voice. McGee glared at her, he sooo didn't want to bring this up.

"We were just about to play a game of canasta." Tony responded sarcastically.

"Is that a metaphor for something else? Cause I accidently turned on the audio and I heard Ziva moaning." Abby glanced over to McGee and smiled when she saw how red he had turned.

"We're undercover Abby." Tony replied impatiently. "We needed to convince our killer we're married."

"Well that's convenient." She replied without missing a beat. "Two people who clearly love each other, having to pretend to be married."

Tony stopped where he was standing. "Love each other Abbs? Isn't that a bit of a jump, we're partners. We work together."

"Is it?" She replied with a smirk.

Tony's mind started whirring. Was he in love with her? Of course not, he convinced himself, he really liked and respected her. Plus, well, she was hot. That didn't mean he was in love with her. Nothing good ever happened when he fell in love with someone.

"The case Abby, where is this guy?" He finally responded.

"He's in the back kinda hiding behind a tree." He heard McGee respond. "I can see you with the Camera now Tony, he's about 100 yards to your left."

Tony crouched down and got a look at the guy. He pulled out his camera phone and started snapping pictures. "I can't get a good look at his face."

"You know Tony," Abby responded, "I have a bet going on wither or not you and Ziva will hook up on this case."

"Abby" he head McGee hiss in the background.

"This guy is packing it up." Tony responded ignoring Abby's comments for the time being. "I still haven't gotten a good look at his face; I'm going to follow him."

He trailed the guy back to a car that had been parked out front of one of the houses. He quickly snapped pictures of the car before it drove off. "Damn it, I still haven't gotten his face."

"I'll run the plates Tony." McGee responded. "Maybe we'll get a hit off them."

"You can go back to your den of love now Tony." He head Abby say "We'll do the rest from here."

Tony just shook his head. "You know Abby, Ziva won't be pleased when she hears about this bet."

McGee groaned. "Can you maybe not tell her?"

"Oh, you're in on this too are you Probster? Maybe I should be making bets on how long the two of you live."

"You could." Abby cheekily replied. "But then Gibbs would get the audio tape of Ziva moaning, and he would find out how long it took you to answer the phone."

Tony felt his face turn white. "truce." He responded.

"Truce" Abby and McGee answered in unison.


	17. worried

Ziva was frantically pacing the kitchen. Tony had been gone for some time now and Abby and McGee hadn't felt the need to turn her ear piece on. She was completely out of the loop and she didn't like it. What if something happened to Tony while she was in the kitchen doing nothing? She would never forgive herself. She had just decided to go to him and had picked up her weapon when her ear piece crackled to life and the front door opened. She felt her shoulders drop with relief but rage soon took over.

"Don't you EVER, leave me out of the loop again!" She ground into the mic. "What if something had happened, what if I needed backup? You completely cut me off, do not think Gibbs will not hear about this!" Her statement was quickly followed by several curses in Hebrew.

"Nothing would have happened to you Ziva; we could hear you the entire time." McGee responded just as Tony walked into the kitchen with his hands in the air in a surrender position.

"Oh, you could hear me could you." She continued even more irate then she had been a second before. "Let me just tell you McGee that you will be lucky if the next time I see you I don't kill you."

Tony sensed the situation slipping out of control and decided to calm his partner down before McGee dug himself into a bigger hole.

He walked over to her and pulled out her ear piece before making a cutting motion at the camera for McGee to kill the video feed. As soon as he was confidant that McGee had cut the video he wrapped Ziva into a hug. For a second she struggled against his hold before giving in and wrapping her arms around his waist.

"I was worried." She quietly muttered into his chest.

"Hey, I'm fine Zee. I never even approached the guy. In fact I never even saw his face." He responded somewhat bitterly.

Ziva quickly looked up at the tone in his voice and took a step back. "Was it him?"

"I don't know. I got a couple of pictures of his license plate that McDork is going to trace. We'll go talk to whoever it is in the morning." He walked over the phone and called up McGee and Abby on the speaker phone.

"We found him." Abby answered. "His name is Josh Andover and he lives just a couple of blocks from where you are. He's had proximity to all the victims."

"I'm sure Gibbs will have us interrogate him tomorrow." Tony said. "There's still a chance he's some creeper looking through a telescope at the 'stars'" he said with air quotes.

"That is possible." Abby responded. "Although slightly creepy to do it all in black in someone else's yard."

"Why is it creepy he's wearing black Abby?" McGee asked, "You always wear black."

Tony and Ziva both smiled and the sound of Abby punching McGee and the quick Ow that followed.

"All right nerd squad," Tony said teasingly, "it's been a long night. I think we're going to head to bed."

"Who are you calling a nerd Tony?" Abby quickly responded. "It won't be so funny when I kill you and leave"

"No forensic evidence" the other three chanted.

"Humph. Well you two go to bed then. Try to get at least some sleep." She said with a smirk in her voice before quickly disconnecting the phone.

Ziva narrowed her eyes at the camera before heading towards the stairs. "Coming hairy butt?" she asked Tony before ascending towards the bedroom.

Tony stood routed to the spot for just a second. As much as he would love to continue where they left off, he thought that just maybe it wasn't such a hot idea while on a case. He decided that as soon as this was over he was going to take her a way for a nice long weekend at some fancy hotel.

Ziva was having much the same thoughts. She really hated the thought of starting something again and getting interrupted. Perhaps he was only attracted to her right now under the element of danger that went with the mission. Her heart dropped at the thought. She turned as she heard him come into the bedroom.

"Uh, listen sweet cheeks; I don't think we should do this."

She felt her heart break a little at his words and cursed herself for being surprised. She quickly looked down at the floor. Tony however saw the hurt flash through her eyes in the split second before she masked it.

"That's not what I meant." He quickly amended. "I mean I don't think we should do this now. We're on a case, and well, it wouldn't be very professional of us. However," he continued walking up to her and lifting her chin so that she was looking directly at him "I would really love to take you away somewhere once this is all over. I meant what I said earlier, I don't want a one night stand." He was rewarded to see her face light up.

"I would love that as well hairy butt. But for now we really should try and get some sleep."

She turned away from him and started to strip so she could change into her pyjamas.

"You're going to try and kill me aren't you?" Tony muttered as he quickly turned away from the sight of his partner changing.

Ziva turned around and smiled at the sight of her partner facing the wall. "Good things come to those who wait Tony. Remember that." She said with a smirk.

Tony waited until he was sure that she was in bed before quickly changing and joining her in the king size bed.

He leaned over and quickly kissed her before settling into the covers. "Only if the wait doesn't kill them." He responded finally before closing his eyes and settling into sleep.

Ziva just shook her head at how quickly he drifted into slumber. When she was sure he was asleep she curled up next to him and placed her head on his shoulder. She felt his arm draw around her and her she had a smile on her face as she drifted off to sleep.

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He thought he had been mad before but he was absolutely seething now. He had watched the man leave the house and take pictures of the guy staring through his telescope. Eugene and Muffy were not who he had thought they were. They were trying to catch him. He chuckled bitterly. Let them try, he thought to himself. The woman whatever her name was was most certainly still his. It didn't matter that she wasn't a housewife. Perhaps this kill would be even more fun. He would have to watch himself more carefully. He looked through his heat sensor at the house and noticed that they were once again sleeping curled up together. Now that he knew who they were it was time to send another present.

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**a/n: Sorry guys this one is a little short. I'll try and have another update up soon, you know how these things go...sometimes there's time to write and sometimes there just isn't. :) Thanks for sticking with it though, I appreciate all your reviews. Please let me know if there's anything I need to work on with my writting so that I can get better. You all rock! **

** Thanks Again...Kris**


	18. Good Morning

Tony and Ziva woke up the next morning in much the same fashion they had the morning before. The difference being that morning Ziva was content to stay in Tony's arms not caring if he woke up to discover her there. She savoured the feeling of being safe and warm. She had woken up in men's arms before, and it was unusual for her to feel safe. She thought back to the day before. She was glad that Tony seemed to want a relationship; however there were still doubts in her head that he would get tired of her after a bit. After all, he had fallen in love with a doctor and she was a killer. She couldn't be any more opposite to Jeanne. She closed her eyes and willed the thoughts to go away. If all she got was a month, a week, or even just a night with Tony, this time around she would take it.

Tony woke later then Ziva. The moment he realized where he was and who he was with he tightened his arms, which naturally caused Ziva to turn around and face him. He was scared for a minute that she was going to kill him, however once he registered her smile he allowed himself to relax. Slowly the memories from the day before filtered into his sleepy brain. He smiled and leaned forward and kissed her nose.

"Good morning my crazy ninja chick, Sleep well?"

Ziva's heart beat picked up at the use of my. "I slept very well, you're very warm. It was nice."

Tony's green eyes darkened just a little bit. "You really are trying to kill me aren't you? You know, we don't want to kill our cover, some action should be expected." He muttered before his mouth came down on hers.

The kiss was unexpected, but Ziva was not a fool. She quickly would her arms around his neck and slid her tongue into his mouth. They had both agreed that this wasn't the best time, but they quickly slid into a duel of tongues, teeth and lips both fighting for control. Ziva wasn't sure at what point she had decided to surrender, it could have been when his hand slid up her shirt to cup her breast, either way she found that she didn't mind letting Tony set the pace. After a few minutes the kiss went from urgent to gentle and Tony's hands were once again gliding softly over her skin under her shirt. He kept his hands above her waist and the tenderness was pushing her over the edge. She decided to take control back and rolled so that she was now lying on top of him without once breaking the kiss. She thrust her hips into his pelvis and was pleased with the groan that came out of him.

Tony didn't think he was going to be able to take much more of this without finishing it. He quickly grabbed back control rolling so that he was now on top. He gave one quick thrust just to tease them both before pulling back and staring down at her face. He couldn't get over how beautiful she was. Her lips were red and slightly swollen from his kisses and her eyes had glazed over just a bit. "All right Mrs Smith," he finally said, "if we don't stop here there won't be any stopping."

It was a minute before Ziva was able to get any words out. "I think I am ok with not stopping." She uttered huskily. To her surprise her words had the opposite effect and Tony quickly rolled off her and to the other side of the bed. Before she could be hurt at his action he grabbed her hand and held it, his thumb rubbing circles on the top.

"Ok, so I'm thinking we're going to need some ground rules." He said. "We will not be finishing this as much as it drives us crazy while on assignment so we need some rules. Rule number one, neither of us can mention how much we want to finish this."

Ziva snorted before rolling up on her side to look down at him. "What difference does that make? We both know where we want this to end."

"The difference it makes Zee, is when you tell me things like that I tend to loose control, so you can't say it."

"You have not lost control yet." She muttered

Tony quickly rolled back on top of her and kissed her hard before looking directly into her eyes. "I'm hanging on here by the skin of my teeth. Do not for a second think I won't loose it. So please, please don't say things like that."

Ziva caught her breath at the intensity in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to devour her, and she had no doubts that he could. Seeing as how she too didn't want to give in to this undercover she quickly gulped and said "You can not say how much you want this either. I think I will be more likely to loose it then you will be."

"Fair enough, you know maybe we shouldn't be having this conversation in bed." He thought out loud. He rolled over and out of the bed. "Come on Mrs Smith, we can continue this over breakfast."

Ziva looked at him incredulously "With Abby and McGee watching? I don't think so. I would like to add a rule of my own." She added after a second. "If we are both in agreement that we do not want to do this now, then no more feeling around when we're alone."

"I think you mean fooling sweet cheeks" he replied with a grin. "But your description works too. All right, no more fooling around when we're alone. Now let's go get some breakfast, I'm starving." He shot her a charming grin and headed down stairs.

Ziva shook her head. He was incorrigible. However that was just one of the things she loved about him. She got out of bed and decided she wanted a shower before she went down to breakfast so she quickly got all her things and headed into the bathroom.

Tony was downstairs when he heard the shower start up so he decided to make them breakfast. He grabbed his mic and earpiece and gave a cheerful "morning probie" before heading over to the cupboards.

"Next time you call me probie DiNozzo there will be consequences." Came the voice of Gibbs in his ear piece.

"Sorry Boss, I didn't know you were there. I thought McGee and Abby were manning the surveillance."

"They were DiNozzo, but you and your wife felt the need to oversleep and are late for work."

"How can I be late? I'm undercover."

"You should be up by 7 to make contact DiNozzo."

Tony glanced up at the clock. It was 7:30. He decided to toy with his boss a little. "I was up at 7 boss. But you know, I'm a married man these days."

"DiNozzo if you actually mean what I think you mean you can count on numerous head slaps when you get in here today."

"Of course I didn't mean it boss," he quickly backtracked eyes wide "I was just jerking you chain a little."

"The next chain you jerk DiNozzo had better be your own. Where's Ziva?"

"She's in the shower boss. I was just going to get breakfast ready."

"Dear boy, perhaps we should send you out in the field more often." Came the voice of Ducky. "There's something to be said for home cooked meals after all."

Tony just groaned. He never thought he would see the day when he longed for Abby and McGee to be doing his surveillance, but Ducky? This was just too much. He would probably analyse ever look he and Ziva gave each other. He quickly puttered around the kitchen getting breakfast ready. It wasn't too long before Ziva came down stairs to the aroma of pancakes.

"You cooked breakfast?" She asked eyes wide.

"Yes, I can cook you guys. I just mostly choose not to."

Ziva walked over to the table and picked up an ear piece and her mic. "Good morning." She said.

"Good morning my dear, you look well rested this morning." She looked up at the camera and gave a smile to Ducky.

"I feel well rested, thank you Ducky."

"You're late David." Came Gibbs voice.

"How can I be late?" she asked confused "I have not gone anywhere."

"That's what I asked too." Tony answered. "Apparently we should be down in the kitchen at 7" he said as he brought her a plate of pancakes.

"Um these are very good Tony." Ziva said as she stared to eat.

"DiNozzo I want you in here now. We need to go check your telescope guy out."

"But boss, I was just about to eat my pan…"

"What part of now do you not understand?"

"On it boss." He replied while quickly shoving food in his mouth.

Ziva looked on with a smirk. "I packed you a lunch last night while you were out tracking down the killer last night Tony, it's in the fridge."

"Bless you Zee." He said before quickly leaning over to give her a kiss. His eyes then went wide as he realized what he had done and looked up at the camera.

"Now DiNozzo." came Gibbs voice.

He quickly grabbed his lunch and headed out the front door. It wasn't long before he stopped outside and quickly uttered an explicative that everyone heard. Ziva was on her way out before Tony could tell her to stay in the house.

"Boss," he said, I think we have another problem.


	19. Cookies

Ziva quickly went out the door and found Tony looking at a severed hand with disgust.

"Why is it they always have to send a souvenir? And why does it always have to be a body part?"

"Well, it could always be worse Tony."

"How can it be worse then a severed hand Muffy?" Tony asked. "OK well, I suppose it could be a severed head, that wouldn't be too great."

"At least it is not a bomb."

"Ok yeah, I guess there's that. Do you happen to have any gloves with you?"

"They are in the kitchen. I shall be right back." Ziva quickly pivoted and went into the kitchen to receive some gloves. "We have a severed hand." She said to the camera before grabbing some gloves from a drawer and heading back outside. Once there she quickly put on the gloves and picked up the box that was containing the severed hand.

"We should bring this inside in case the neighbours come out." She quickly told Tony before heading inside.

Tony quickly got out his cell phone and started taking pictures of the area. "Can someone please explain to me how this psycho managed to creep into our yard and leave us a severed hand on the front porch without any of us being notified? Cause right now, I'm feeling that our security is not secure enough."

"I'll call in McGee and Abby." Gibbs replied through the ear piece. "I'm going to need you to come in and bring the hand with you."

"What and leave Ziva here alone?" Tony replied incredulously as he walked back into the house.

"Last time I checked DiNozzo she could take care of herself. We still have to talk to our suspect. I'll send Ducky over to stay with Ziva."

"Ducky? Really? Because if that creep comes back Ducky is going to be able to protect Ziva?"

"I can hear you, dear lad." Ducky said through the ear piece, and I don't doubt that our dear Ziva can hear you as well."

"I certainly can Ducky. Ziva said as she came out of the kitchen with their new present wrapped up in the box. "I found this under the hand." She told Tony presenting him with a new note.

"Wonderful." Tony answered after reading it. "I told you chasing down that guy last night was a bad idea. Boss looks like our covers blown."

"Blown how DiNozzo?"

"Well I'm looking at a letter here that says 'I know who you are."

"That doesn't mean your cover is blown DiNozzo. That could mean anything. I want you in here, now!"

Tony simply sighed and headed for the front door.

"Don't forget we have dinner at Mark and Joanne's tonight." Ziva said as he was on his way out. "As long as we're still undercover we need to meet the neighbours."

"This day just gets better and better." Tony muttered as he headed out the door. "Be careful." He said to Ziva before confirming that they were indeed in a room with no cameras before quickly kissing her again and heading out the door.

Tony drove extra carefully on his way back to headquarters. The last thing he wanted was to have a severed hand come flying out of its box and onto his lap. He shuddered at the mental image. He had to admit, that driving around with a hand in the back seat was slightly freaking him out. Although, he mused to himself, perhaps the hand would distract Gibbs enough that he would forget that he saw him kiss Ziva at the breakfast table this morning. He mentally gave himself a head slap. That had just been plain stupid on his part. He couldn't help it though. If Gibbs was going to get upset about whatever rule they were breaking that was fine.

He managed to get through security at the shipyard without too much difficulty. Thankfully security was used to seeing him come through every day so no one thought to inquire about the box in the back seat. He pulled into his usual parking space and headed into the building.

He had barely gotten off the elevator before Gibbs was there and had delivered 3 sharp head slaps to the back of the head.

"Ouch! What were those for?"

"One for breaking rule twelve, never date a co-worker, Two for kissing Ziva at the breakfast table and Three for doing whatever it was that you were doing to have made you late this morning."

Tony rubbed the back of his head. "For the record I have never even been on a date with Ziva, so how can we be dating? And I was late this morning because…"

"I don't care DiNozzo, I called McGee and Abby about 10 minutes ago, and they should be here…" He hadn't finished his sentence before the elevator gave its usual ding and Abby and McGee stepped off it.

"Tony!" Abby exclaimed as she ran forward to give him a hug. "I'm so sorry; I don't know how this guy snuck into your yard! We were totally watching all night! I hear you have another letter for me, do you have another letter for me?" She managed to get out all in one breath before McGee managed to gently pry her off of Tony.

"Abby," McGee chided, "Let Tony get some air and I'm sure he'll give you the letter."

"Its right here Abby." Tony finally said once he had managed to draw in some air. "Let me just run this hand down to Ducky and you can have the letter."

"Ducky is on his way to go see Ziva." Gibbs intervened. "You can take the hand down to Palmer. He'll take a look at it."

"Palmer boss? Really? You're going to trust Palmer with a severed hand?"

"Would you prefer that Ziva remain alone at the house?"

Tony winced. "Well no, but that reminds me," he turned to McGee "how did that creep get into our yard without you noticing?"

"I don't know Tony. That's what I'm here to find out. I'll meet you in Abby's lab." He quickly headed for the elevator with Abby trailing behind staring at the letter.

Gibbs rubbed his face and then took a sip of his ever present coffee. "I'm going back to surveillance. You take that down to Palmer." He uttered before heading up to MTAC.

Tony just shook his head. "I'm trusting the autopsy gremlin with a severed hand. What has the world come to?"

Ziva felt like a trapped animal. She hated sitting in the house doing nothing. As soon as Tony had left she had started doing a load of laundry, had cleaned up the breakfast dishes and had started baking cookies, however she was still trapped with the feeling of not doing anything. She had just paced the length of the living room for another time before she heard the doorbell ring. She eagerly headed for the door.

"Hello Muffy dear, do you have a hug for your great uncle Ducky?" Ducky asked as she opened the door.

She quickly gave a grin of genuine amusement before she was wrapped up in a hug from Ducky.

"Uncle Ducky, please come in." she graciously said before showing Ducky into the house.

"Well my dear this certainly is extravagant." Ducky said as he wandered around looking in all the rooms. He chuckled as he came across the picture of Tony and Ziva on their "wedding" day. "You certainly were a blushing bride my dear." He said and smiled at the grimace that crossed Ziva's face.

"I don't know why Abby would choose such a perfectly awful picture." She admitted. "Surely there must have been something else out there she could have picked."

"I'm sure your reaction was just the one she was looking for. In face this reminds me of a prank we played on a fellow student back when I was in Edinburgh."

"I have no doubt that it does Ducky." Ziva interrupted before he could get any further into his story. "Did you have a reason for your visit today or were you just coming to check up on me?"

"Well if I do say so I mostly wanted to see the house everyone has been raving about. Abby has talked about nothing else since you've been here; although I did also want to alleviate our young Tony's mind about you being here by yourself."

Ziva simply rolled her eyes. "I am more than able to take care of myself Ducky."

"I know that my dear, but that doesn't mean the rest of us can't worry when you're out by yourself."

"I appreciate your concern, however I can assure you it is unwarranted. We have not yet even made contact with our killer."

"That doesn't mean that he's not somewhere nearby watching and waiting for you to be alone. He likes to be in control our killer, and he'll wait until he thinks you're here at the house by yourself before making any moves."

"Well then, he is to be disappointed, as it is very rare indeed for me to be here alone. Perhaps I should have the opportunity more often, and then he would make a move."

"I don't think that's wise Ziva. As much as we want to catch our killer we would like to do so without any danger to yourself."

"That is the nature of the job Ducky. I am aware of the risks. Better myself then some poor woman who couldn't protect herself."

Ducky just shook his head. "Do I smell Chocolate chip cookies Ziva?"

"You do. I've been killing time since Tony left this morning. Would you like some?"

"Dear Ziva, I would love some." He cleared his throat. "I wanted to congratulate you on your relationship with our young Tony. It's good to see that the two of you have finally figured things out."

Ziva's face quickly turned red as she got up and headed for the kitchen. "I would appreciate it Ducky if you kept that to yourself for the time being. Gibbs will probably kill us as it is, I do not need everyone at work knowing about Tony and I."

Ducky sat down at the kitchen table and grabbed for a cookie. "You have my utmost confidence of course." He bit into a cookie. "Dear child these cookies are amazing. If DiNozzo won't marry you then I would be glad to so myself."


	20. Josh Anderson

Tony was pacing the length of Abby's lab waiting while McGee and Abby ran through all the video tape from the night before.

"Can't you two make this go any faster?"

"It's not like this is a walk in the park Tony." Mcgee responded sounding mildly agitated. "There's nothing showing him coming back, Abbs do you think it's possible he put the front cameras on a loop?"

"That wouldn't be good for Tony and Ziva if he did McGee. That means he knows the cameras are there. I once again didn't find anything on the note." She said dejectedly turning to face Tony. "Whoever this guy is, he knows what he's doing." She said before turning to a computer and pulling up their video footage.

"Great." Tony muttered. "It always ends up sucking when they know what they're doing."

"I found something interesting." Abby excitedly called out. Tony and McGee both rushed over to her to stand behind her as she prepared whatever it was she wanted to show them. She quickly pressed play and Tony let out an audible groan.

"Abby you're supposed to be looking for our killer."

"Pay up McGee." She said as McGee groaned and pulled out his wallet. She hit play so they could watch the video again.

Tony was disgusted with himself. What had possessed him to kiss Ziva in the kitchen this morning? He watched himself do it again and again as Abby kept replaying the video. He was so going to have to remember this for future payback. He suddenly had an inspiration.

"How did you two get in here so fast this morning? McGee you live 40 minutes away and yet you made it in 10 with Abby no less." His comments caused McGee's face to turn an interesting shade of red, which promptly caused a smirk to cross Tony's face.

"He was staying at my place." Abby finally offered. "I offered to let him sleep on the couch since we had to stay up all night watching your place while you and Ziva did who knows what in the bedroom." She said with a smirk. She knew they were at a stalemate. Tony didn't dare tease Tim while she was around as he knew that she had the upper hand. "Leave Tim alone. He's a perfect gentleman."

"I don't doubt that he was Abby. I'm not sure McGreen over there even knows how to make a move." He said purposefully trying to get McGee riled up.

McGee however simply stood his ground and looked at Tony. "You could keep teasing me Tony; however Gibbs might get a copy of this." He quickly hit play on an audio clip and Ziva's moan rang throughout the lab. McGee stared Tony down with a smug look while Abby's eyes went wide.

Tony however was completely unfazed. Much to McGee's chagrin Tony just smiled.

"Well McGee, I suppose that Gibbs could get a hold of that. However I would remember that that fun little clip you're holding onto is Ziva, and we all know there are many, many ways that Ziva can kill you."

McGee's face turned a little pale and Abby laughed despite herself. She was proud that Timmy had tried to hold his ground, but one should _NEVER _use anything that would incriminate Ziva. That was just pure suicide.

"Boys" she finally said as the two agents were still staring each other down. "Perhaps we could get back to the case. A Scary killer did leave you a hand this morning Tony."

Tony's face wrinkled into a look of disgust as he simply muttered "why does it always have to be body parts?"

Abby just clucked in sympathy as they kept going through the videos. "I've got nothing." She finally said.

"The front yard cameras are definitely on a loop." McGee answered. "This guy is good. He knew how to override our system and he knew the cameras were there."

"Great." Tony muttered. "We have a killer nerd running around." He sighed. "I'm going to go tell Gibbs what we found and see if he wants us to go track down the telescope guy."

Gibbs would never have admitted it but he was bored. He had already gone through two coffees and there was no sign of action outside of the house. He could see that Ducky and Ziva were having an intense conversation, however out of privacy he had decided not to play the audio. They were probably discussing DiNozzo anyway, and he was sure that he didn't want to hear that conversation. He had known that Ziva and Tony were heading in that direction, anyone with eyes could see where this had been heading, and it was partially his fault for making them shack up together, but he was still hesitant about the relationship. If something went wrong it had the potential to destroy his team, and he really liked his team the way they were. He briefly thought back to Paris and shook his head. On the other hand these two did balance each other out nicely. Sure they fought like little kids most of the time, but that was probably just unresolved sexual tension. He shuddered. He really didn't want to go there.

"We've got nothing helpful boss." Tony said as he barged into MTAC breaking his train of thought. "Well we did discover that our killer is a nerd, not unlike our own McGee, and that he seems to know that we have cameras. Oh and we know that he can break into our surveillance footage and that he can put videos in a loop. Other then that, we've got nothing."

Gibbs faced Tony and lifted an eyebrow. "Nothing DiNozzo?"

"Well nothing useful. Look I think that maybe we should pull out Ziva. This guy hacked into our system so really she's not secure there by herself anymore."

Gibbs gestured for Tony to come over to where he was sitting and slapped him in the back of the head.

"Ouch, you know boss, one of these days you're going to give me a concussion and then what are you going to do? What was that for anyway? Haven't you met your quota for the day?"

"You want another one DiNozzo? I don't know or care about your 'relationship' with Ziva, but if you EVER suggest pulling one of my more then capable agents from a case again without good cause I will have you ass. Is this understood?"

"Understood boss. Hey what are they talking about?" he asking gesturing towards the screen where Ducky and Ziva sat chatting."

"The sound is off DiNozzo. Do I look like I can read lips?"

"Well I kinda wondered about that actually. I mean, I know you can sign, and Abby reads lips, so I kinda thought that maybe,"

Gibbs sighed. "Do you have a reason to be in here annoying me DiNozzo?"

"Actually I was wondering if you wanted McGee and I to go check out the telescope guy from last night. McGee tracked his address down off the plate I pulled. His name is Josh Andover and he's just a few blocks from our undercover house"

"Go. It'll get you out of my hair for a while at least. Come straight back here when you're done with him DiNozzo." He said with narrowed eyes.

Tony gulped. How did Gibbs always know? He had just wanted to stop in on Ziva on the way back for a few minutes to make sure everything was ok. He shrugged his shoulders and left to go find McGee.

McGee and Abby were still down in her lab going over the security footage. McGee was looking for anything that would tell them something about their killer and Abby was analysing all of Tony and Ziva's interactions with each other.

"Look at the look he gives her here McGee." She said stopping the footage on them eating breakfast the day before.

"Abby I don't really care." McGee exasperatingly responded. "Some of us are actually trying to catch a killer."

"McGee gear up." Tony said entering the lab. "We get to go check out this creepy Josh Anderson guy."

McGee yawned loudly and then started to leave the lab.

"Timmy you should at least have some of my caf-pal." Abby called out. "You only slept for an hour last night."

Tony looked at McGee and smirked. "You and Abby must have had fun."

"Shut up Tony." He responded. "I'm too tired to deal with you. Gibbs didn't relieve us from surveillance until 6."

Tony winced in a surprising show on concern. "Come on McSleepy, I'll let you sleep in the car ride over."

The car ride to Josh Anderson's was indeed very quiet. McGee had fallen asleep much to Tony's amusement. He was so tempted to pull some type of prank, however he resisted knowing what it was like to have been up all night only to have Gibbs call you back in first thing in the morning. He pulled up to a large house that looked surprisingly like the one he was currently staying in.

"McGee, what do we know about this guy?" He asked loudly waking him up.

"Uh, he's single, never married, no kids. He works as a lawyer and one of the big firms downtown. His credit card records show that he's bought 5 telescopes in the last 6 months."

"Great." Tony answered. "I'm surrounded in a case full of nerds. Well let's get this show on the road."

They exited the car and headed for the house. As they approached the front door they slowed down when they noticed a note pinned to the front door. "You won't catch me" was written in bold letters on red paper just like the previous notes.

"Wonderful." Tony said pulling his gun. "This just keeps getting better and better."

They entered the front door carefully clearing the individual rooms before making it up to the bedroom. The sight there was not something they had expected to find.

Josh Anderson was dead. He was tied to his bed and his right hand had been severed from the body. Another note was pinned to his chest. "I know who you are NCIS."


	21. Talks with Gibbs

McGee was exhausted. With just the two of them it had taken almost 4 hours to work the crime scene. With every picture taken Tony had become more and more pissed off, muttering under his breath. They were finally back at headquarters and all he wanted to do was find Abby's pull out cot and collapse for a nap.

Ducky has been sent over to collect the body, which of course had irritated Tony even more as now Ziva was alone at the house. Personally McGee didn't know why he was so worried. If any of them had to be alone Ziva was probably the best candidate. McGee had never met anyone that scared him as much as Ziva. Not that he would admit that of course. He both liked and respected her. They had even become friends during her time at NCIS, however he still found her immensely scary at times.

"McGee hit the sack." Gibbs said entering the bull pen. "You look like you're going to drop."

"I just want to finish processing the crime scene photos boss." He replied rubbing his eyes.

"DiNozzo can do it. You need to go lie down before you're no good to me."

"Go lie down Probie." DiNozzo said gently to McGee coming over to his computer to process the pictures. "We'll need you tonight when we have dinner at the neighbours."

"Fine. Don't touch anything other then those pictures Tony." McGee said getting up. "The last thing I need is for you to break my computer." He headed down to Abby's lab to see if the cot was available.

"Timmy, you look horrible." Was his greeting once he had gotten down there.

"Thanks Abby." He responded sarcastically. "Have you slept yet today?"

"I napped while you guys were at the crime scene. I'm processing the evidence now. Did you want to borrow my cot?"

"If you wouldn't mind. Can you wake me in an hour?"

"Of course Timmy." She said pulling him by the hand over to her cot. She made sure he was lying down and then covered him with a blanket and gave him Burt to hold on to. She kissed his forehead before whispering "Sleep well Timmy" then turning out the light she tiptoed out of the room.

Ziva was back to pacing. There was nothing she hated more then being stuck inside not being able to go anywhere. She of course had been briefed on the new development in the case and she wished she was out there processing the crime scene instead of being stuck in the house. After she had made the cookies she had then baked banana bread, muffins, Tony's favourite brownies, cheesecake and a chocolate cake. They now officially had enough baked goods to see them through a month at least. She decided to take the cheesecake to the dinner tonight and the rest she would just send with Tony into work tomorrow. She could count on McGee and everyone else to eat it all. For the most part, she did after all work with a bunch of men.

She headed back into the kitchen and said to the camera "Gibbs, any updates?" Her phone rang.

"Nothing yet. We've confirmed that the hand found on your doorstep this morning does indeed belong to Josh Anderson. We're also fairly certain he's not the killer." He said dryly.

Ziva just rolled her eyes. "Is there anything I can do? I am a little sick of staying inside the house Gibbs."

"Why don't you go out for a swim? Give him a chance to stalk you a little. Don't wear the suit he gave you though, wear something else."

"Thank you Gibbs." Ziva said before disconnecting the phone and heading upstairs to put on a swim suit. She was excited to go swim some laps. At least that would give her a chance to get out and do something physical. She quickly changed and headed down to the pool. She couldn't help but have the sensation that someone was watching her, but she quickly shrugged it off and proceeded to swim laps.

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She wasn't wearing his suit was his first thought when he saw her leave the confines of her house. He was confidant that eventually she would wear it for him though, even if he had to force her to do it. He was pleased that he had sent her partner away for the day. Killing the man had been easier then he had expected and it had been a surprising pleasure. He had thought that killing housewives had been exciting but he had been surprised at just how great it had felt to kill just because he could. She would be the next he decided. Or should he kill her partner? No better just the woman, it would serve him right for touching what was his. Grief could be worse then death he mused. He would just kill the woman.

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Tony was tired. It had been a long day. The crime scene had taken forever, probably even longer as McGee had been dead on his feet. They still didn't have anything at all useful and now he had to get ready to go to dinner at the neighbours. All he wanted to do was curl up with Ziva in front of that giant TV and watch a couple of movies. He pulled into the driveway and walked into the house.

"Ziva?" he called out? He walked into the kitchen and chuckled at the amount of baked goods covering the counters. Someone had clearly been bored today. "Ziva?"

He started to get a little worried when she didn't answer him. He ran up to the bedroom taking the stairs two at a time. His worry increased when she wasn't in the bedroom or the bathroom. He quickly headed back downstairs checking in every room that he went by. His worry was turning into panic. He quickly headed out onto the deck and let out a huge sigh of relief when he saw her doing laps in the pool. He couldn't help but stare. She was so beautiful. He felt his chest tighten as he watched her and he couldn't help the smile that seemed to plaster itself to his face.

Ziva felt someone watching her and she broke the laps she was doing to see who was there. She felt her chest tighten when she saw Tony standing there staring at her with a huge grin on his face. He was gorgeous she thought to herself. And he was staring at her like he wanted to eat her. She quickly dunked her head back under the water. This case couldn't be over soon enough. She made her way out of the pool and Tony came forward holding her towel.

"We're sill married when we're outside" was all he said before wrapping her in the towel and leaning down to kiss her.

Gibbs groaned loudly. He didn't want to watch this. What were they doing for crying out loud? They knew he was watching. He quickly turned his eyes to any other camera shot. He was so going to head slap them into obliviation the next time he saw them.

Tony was the first to break the kiss. "I was worried about you when you weren't in the house."

"Gibbs gave me permission to come outside. I was going kneed crazy."

"Stir crazy."

"We need to go get ready for dinner." She finally said breaking his hold and heading inside. "Joanne invited us over for 8."

Tony just groaned and followed her inside. "I don't suppose there's any way we can get out of this?"

She just smiled at him and opened the back door, as soon as they stepped into the house the phone rang. Ziva hit speakerphone.

"What the hell was that?" Came Gibbs thunderous exclamation. He had the satisfaction of seeing both his agents wince.

"What was what boss?" DiNozzo replied.

"Oh you know what I'm talking about. If I ever, _EVER_, see that again without some neighbour standing around watching you had better believe that neither of you will survive to see another undercover case. Do I make myself understood?"

"Yes Boss." They replied in unison.

"David, go get ready for dinner. DiNozzo you are not to go up before she comes down. Take me off speaker phone; I have something I need to say to you."

Tony winced as Ziva headed upstairs. He quickly took the speakerphone off and picked up the handset.

"If you hurt her, if you do something to ruin this partnership so that you can't work together anymore I will break you. Is that understood?"

"Yes Boss. Although why is it that everybody assumes that I'm going to hurt her?"

"We are not having this conversation anymore. If I have to say anything else about this I'll have your ass for breaking rule 12."

"Did you find anything else boss?"

Gibbs sighed. "No. Ducky is still going over the body. Abby hasn't found anything and I've given strict instructions to not wake McGee up until you're over at the neighbours."

Ziva came back into the room wearing a blue dress. Tony couldn't the grin that lit up his face at the sight of her.

"DiNozzo!" came the voice over the phone. Tony turned his attention back to his boss. "Go get ready for dinner; I want to talk to Ziva.

"On it boss." He said passing the phone off to Ziva and heading upstairs.

"Gibbs." Ziva said into the phone.

"I'm going to give you the same warning I gave DiNozzo. If you hurt him, if you do anything to ruin this partnership so that you can't work together anymore I will be forced to send you back to Israel, and I really don't want to do that. Is this understood?"

Ziva turned a puzzled look up to the camera. "Why do you assume that this will end badly?" she asked her voice sounding concerned.

Gibbs suddenly realized how insecure she sounded about this and sighed. He really didn't want to discuss relationships with his team.

"I don't assume this will end badly." He finally conceded. "In fact if there's anybody who I thought could make a relationship work, as much as it pains me to admit it, it would be you and DiNozzo. I'm simply laying the rules down up front. I like my team. I don't want to have to train a new team. I'm just telling you both to not screw this up."

"That is fair." Ziva acknowledged with a nod. "I will do my best to not nail this up."

Gibbs just sighed. "Its screw it up Ziva."

Tony came back downstairs ready for dinner. "Well let's get this show on the road sweet cheeks. Let's go meet these neighbours." He said as he put in his ear piece and grabbed his tie clip camera.

Ziva traded the phone for her ear piece and went to grab the cheesecake. "This could be fun." She said to Tony as they headed out the door. "Besides our killer could be there."

"Be careful. Don't take any risks." Gibbs said through the earpiece. "I'm gonna go wake up McGee.


	22. Dinner Party

As soon as they were out the front door Tony grabbed Ziva's hand. At her look he simply smiled at her, shrugged his shoulders and finally said "I can't help it. I just want to hold your hand."

She allowed him a brief smile before heading down the driveway towards their neighbour's house. Secretly she was looking forward to this. For one night she could pretend that she and Tony were married, that they were a normal couple who had just moved into a new neighbourhood. There had never been a lot of "normal" in her life, so just for tonight she would pretend that they were the Smiths.

Tony however was still wondering about Gibbs earlier words. Was he really that bad that everyone thought he was going to hurt Ziva? Would he end up hurting Ziva? He really didn't want to. He thought back on his track record. Maybe Gibbs was right. Should he end this before it started to spare Ziva the pain? He tightened his hold on her hand and drew her closer. Maybe he was a jerk for this, perhaps he was completely selfish, but there was no way he was going to end this. If something went wrong and he hurt her, then he would leave NCIS, but he couldn't bring himself to a relationship that had barely begun. If something went horribly wrong he would simply leave. He couldn't bare the thought of hurting her anyway.

It wasn't long before they reached the house next door. "I'm going to need clear shots at faces." They heard a tired McGee say into their earpieces.

"Welcome back to the land of the awake." Tony teased McGee. "I was starting to think you were sleeping beauty and we were going to have to send Abby to wake you up with a kiss."

"Funny Tony." They heard Abby say. "Which fairy tale does that make you?"

"Prince charming obviously." Was his quick answer. Ziva merely snorted and then announced that they were there.

She knocked on the door which was quickly opened by a cheerful looking Joanne.

"Muffy, Eugene, we're so glad you came. Come on it." She quickly ushered them in and relived Ziva of the cheesecake she was carrying. "Mark," she called back "Eugene and Muffy are here, could you please introduce them to everybody."

Mark quickly came to the entrance way and brought them into the house. "Everyone I'd like you to meet our new neighbours, Eugene and Muffy Smith." As soon as he had uttered the words they heard McGee snicker in their ears.

Tony took a look around. Besides him and Ziva there were four other couples in the room. Since Mark was clearly going to introduce them to the other couples one at a time he simply wrapped his arm around Ziva's shoulder and followed Mark over to the first couple.

"Eugene, Muffy, I would like you to meet John and Annie Hopper. They live across the street in the blue house." They made the cursory how do you do's before moving on to the next couple. McGee uttered a got them in their ear to let them know that the pictures of their faces and their names had been recorded. "This is Nathan and Kristine Jones. They live on the other side of you." Mark continued. A quick got them was uttered right before Mark showed them over to yet another couple. "This is Michael and Michelle Longbottom and they live in the house at the top of the cul de sac." Once again a brief got them was heard before they were ushered over to the final couple. "This is Kristopher and Catherine Stay and they live in the house directly across from ours."

After the introductions were all made Mark quickly invited the guys out to the backyard to help with the grilling while the women stayed inside to catch up. It wasn't long before Ziva found herself the center of attention.

"Muffy, we're so glad you moved in. That house has been empty for far too long." Catherine said while smiling at Ziva. "We were beginning to worry that it would never sell with all the unfortunate business in the area lately."

Ziva smiled back. "We are very excited to be here." She said. "After our Agent showed us the house we simply fell in love with it. It seems like such a nice neighbourhood to raise a family."

"Oh it is." Michelle assured her. "We've lived here for 15 years and we simply adore it. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else."

The conversation quickly turned to kids, and Ziva found that she was the only one of the women that didn't have children. Annie had just had her first baby a couple of months ago and it was the first time she had left her daughter. The other women were reminiscing about their first times as mom and Ziva soon found that she would rather be anywhere else. She had always gotten along better with men, she understood how they thought and worked, being in a group of women simply made her uncomfortable. She hid it well though, laughing at the stories with the other women and joking about having kids of her own. The conversation had her considering things she had never given any thought too before, and she found herself wondering if Tony wanted children. She quickly checked those thoughts at the door before forcing herself to pay more attention to the conversation around her.

In the meantime out on the deck Tony was having a great time. They had quickly launched into a conversation about basketball and were currently setting up a time that they could all get together and play. Tony offered the court in his backyard, knowing that Ziva wouldn't mind and quickly started teasing the older guys about how he was going to kick their butts. Too soon the meat was ready and the women came out to set the tables set up in the backyard. He noticed that Ziva was smiling, however it seemed kind of forced to him so he quickly went to join her where she was standing.

Ziva was relieved when Tony came to stand next to her. She hated to admit it, but he was much more comfortable in a group of women then she was. They quickly sat down to eat and it wasn't too long before they heard McGee in their ear piece.

"I don't think any of them are our guy. They're all clean upstanding citizens. The worst I could find on any of them was a speeding ticket, and even that was paid in a timely manner."

"That's kinda creepy." Abby responded. "Even Tony's been charged for Murder twice."

Tony choked on the burger he was eating and Ziva slapped him on the back.

"You'll have to excuse Eugene." She told the group, "sometimes he forgets to chew." This quickly had the group laughing while Tony merely glared at Ziva. It wasn't long before they had all finished eating and Joanne quickly suggested that they play a game. Ziva couldn't help but smile as Tony's face lit up like the fourth of July. She knew how much he loved games; he always had her playing along with something whenever they were on some type of stakeout.

"How about charades?" Michelle asked the group and was quickly met with good natured groans. It was quickly decided that they would play charades and Ziva tried her hardest to not look confused. Abby however realized that Ziva probably wouldn't know what that was and quickly explained the rules over the earpiece.

"Why don't we make this interesting?" she finally offered to the group once Abby had explained the rules. "Men versus Women?"

Tony merely shook his head. He knew how competitive Ziva was and he knew she was just out to beat him. Everyone quickly agreed and they proceeded to start the game. He was surprised at how good Ziva was at this game. Having never played it before he had expected her to perhaps be a little slow, however she picked it up very quickly and soon it was evident that she was the staring player on her team.

The game carried on longer then anyone realized except for McGee and Abby who would occasionally laugh at the scenes they were seeing from the camera pins. They managed to save a few pictures of Tony pretending to be a dog, and Ziva doing the can-can that they would save for blackmailing purposes later.

Soon the game broke up with the women being declared the winners. Annie and John couldn't stay any longer as they had to get home to their son and they all decided to declare it a night with the men agreeing to a basketball game the next night.

Tony took Ziva's hand again as they made the walk back to their house. "That was fun. We should do stuff like that more often." He said.

"Check our neighbours for criminal activity?" Ziva inquired wrinkling her nose?

"No. Socialize. Play games, have fun outside of work. What do you say McGee? Abby? You in for a game of charades one of these days?"

"Count me in." came the immediate response from Abby. "Can we play twister too?"

"What is a twister?" Ziva asked as McGee groaned.

"Only the best game ever created." Abby replied. Tony merely grinned at Ziva and wiggled his eyebrows. They soon launched into a companionable silence for the walk home and it wasn't long until they were back in their own driveway.

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He watched as they walked back up their driveway. He was ready for them. He had set his plan in motion the moment he had seen them head off to the neighbours hand in hand. His blood started to hum in anticipation. This was going to be good, very, very good. He waited until they came in the front door. As soon as it was closed and they had their backs to him he reached out with both hands stunning each of them in the back with the two stun guns he had brought. The women went down immediately however the man turned around to look at him first before going down. He knew he didn't have much time. The others would be there soon.

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**A/N: I know, I'm completely horrible. Everyone has to hate a cliff hanger. Thanks for all the positive reviews by the way, I really appreciate them. They make me want to keep writting :)**


	23. Freak Out

Abby was the first to realize something was wrong. They had walked into the house however there was no footage of them being anywhere in the house.

"Abby" McGee suddenly said sounding panicked. "Abby we have a huge problem, call Gibbs now, I'm heading over there!"

Abby didn't waste any time asking McGee how he knew there was a problem she simply did what he said and called Gibbs.

"This had better be good." Came the answer on the second ring.

"Gibbs we have a problem. McGee needs back up over at Tony and Ziva's. He's on his way there right now."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not really sure. McGee just said there was a problem and then took off all in a panic."

"I'll be over there shortly. You find what McGee knows."

"On it boss."

Abby quickly went over to the screens McGee had been watching. She rewound the tapes and started watching. "Oh my gosh!" She quickly called Gibbs back.

"You need to get there fast boss; the killer was waiting for them in the house, looks like he stunned them with something. Tony got a shot of him with the camera pin before he went down, I'm going to run the face and see what I can find out."

"Good job Abbs." Was all he said before disconnecting the phone.

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He knew he didn't have much time. The others would be here very shortly. He quickly pulled out his syringe and injected the women. He then picked her up and carried her out to the car he had parked on the street. He carefully placed her into the passenger's side and then went around to the driver's side. He ran his hand down her hair once, this was going to be his best kill yet, he could feel it in his bones. He put the car in gear and drove away normally so as to not draw attention to himself. He chuckled maliciously. This was going to be fun.

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McGee had gotten there in record time. For once in his life he had driven like Ziva or Gibbs. He was worried. He had watched as Tony's camera pin had started practically vibrating and then Tony had turned around to get a clear shot of the killer before McGee could tell that he had collapsed. This was not good. This was worse then not good. Gibbs was going to kill them all for this one.

He walked right in through the front door and saw Tony collapsed on the floor. He felt his gut churn as he noticed that Ziva was missing. He quickly crouched down beside Tony and checked for a pulse. He felt nothing but relief as he realized Tony's heart was still beating and he quickly pulled out his phone and called 911.

"I have an officer down." He told them quickly reciting the address. He hung up the phone (against the 911 ladies request) and quickly started looking for Ziva. He was seriously worried when he realized she wasn't in the house.

Gibbs barrelled through the front door to find McGee crouched by Tony with a look of almost panic on his face.

"Boss, Ziva's not here and Tony's unconscious. 911 is on its way. It looks like the killer came in through the back door and hid until Tony and Ziva came in. He accosted them with a stun gun and took Ziva." His voice broke on the last sentence.

"We'll find her McGee. I'll stay here with Tony; I need you to go ask the neighbours if they saw anything suspicious, a car that didn't belong for example. When you're done with that head back to the lab and help Abby with the facial recognition. Tony got a clear shot before he went down. I'm going to call in another team to work the house." He placed his hand on the younger agent's shoulder. "We'll find her McGee." He reiterated.

McGee quickly headed out the door and Gibbs allowed his own worry to seep through. This was not good. Tony started to stir on the floor. Gibbs crouched down.

"Tony?"

"Boss? What happened?" Tony asked as he noticed he was lying on the floor and that everything hurt.

"The killer was here waiting for you. He knocked you out with a stun gun. The ambulance is on its way."

"Where's Ziva?"

Gibbs hesitated before answering. "He took her."

Tony's face registered a moment of pure panic before he quickly steeled it into a look of grim resolve. "Call off the ambulance. We need to find Ziva."

"Tony, you not getting checked out is not going to help Ziva. At least let someone make sure you're ok before you go running off to play the hero. You managed to get a good look at him before you went down, we can't do much until Abby gets a hit with the facial recognition."

The sound of sirens was heard coming closer. "With all due respect sir, Ziva is missing. I'm fine. Ducky can check me when we get back to headquarters. I need to find Ziva."

At the look on Tony's face Gibbs finally caved. "All right lets go." He said helping Tony up. He quickly got him into his car and the drove off as the ambulance pulled up. He noticed that McGee's car was already gone, so he had obviously gotten something helpful at one of the houses. He glanced over at Tony who was slouched in his seat and obviously still in some pain. He shook his head, if something happened to Ziva, he didn't want to think about it. This bastard was going to pay. You didn't mess with his team.

Back at the lab Abby was still working on the facial recognition when McGee came tearing in.

"Are they ok Timmy? No one's given me an update?"

"They were stunned and the killer took Ziva. We need to know who he is Abby. The neighbours said they saw a black Toyota Corolla parked out front. He probably took Ziva away in that."

"HE TOOK ZIVA?" Abby yelled. "Where's Tony is he ok?"

"Gibbs was with him when I left, he was unconscious. The ambulance was on its way. There's no time to freak out Abby, we need to find this guy!"

Abby walked out to McGee and smacked him in the arm. "There is always time for a minor freak out McGee! Ziva is missing and Tony is unconscious."

"Actually I'm not." Came a voice at the door.

"Tony!" Abby yelled quickly launching at him only to find her path intercepted by Gibbs.

"Let him be Abbs, he can barely stand let alone endure one of your hugs right now. What do you have for me?" as soon as he asked her computer started beeping.

"You know Gibbs, you should really teach the rest of us your ESP tricks."

"Boss, his name is Alex Karas; He lives a few blocks over from the neighbourhood Tony and Ziva were staying in. He's single, his mom was a housewife. His father was abusive. He drives a 2005 black Toyota corolla." McGee quickly started spouting off.

"Gear up McGee. DiNozzo you stay here, have Ducky check you over."

"With all due respect Boss, No. I'm coming."

"Like hell you are DiNozzo. You can barely walk. I won't have you slowing us down."

"I won't slow you down." DiNozzo and Gibbs stood eyes locked neither one backing down. Abby and McGee's eyes kept shifting back and forth wondering who was going to cave first.

"Fine." Gibbs finally said reading the look of desperation in the other agent's eyes. "But if I tell you to go out to the car, you damn well better do what I say."

"Deal." Tony said before heading towards the elevator. He was a little unsteady but he was determined. That bastard had Ziva. There was no way he was going to stay here, being coddled by Ducky when Ziva was out there who knows where with a psycho killer. Just the thought caused some of his previous panic to come bubbling to the surface. If he didn't get to tell her he loved her…he suppressed the thought. They were going to find her and she was going to be ok. She had to be. Some things were just non negotiable.

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He hummed as he pulled up to his "hunting cabin". He chuckled at the thought. They would be safe here. There was no way her little friends were going to find her. He quickly got out and went around to her side of the car. She was still unconscious which was good. He didn't think he had given her that much, but she was pretty small. He opened her door and leaned across her to unbuckle her seat belt. Suddenly her hand reached out and punched him in the nose. She started struggling however he was already practically on top of her and while she was strong he out weighed her. He quickly opened the glove box and pulled out another syringe. At the sight she started struggling even more however he quickly stuck her with it and emptied the contents. She went limp almost immediately. He brought his hand up to his nose. It was bleeding profusely and he thought it was probably broken. She would pay for that he decided before picking her up and carrying her into the cabin.

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**A/N: How much do you hate me right now? I promise an update soon. I hope you're enjoying it!**

**-Kris**


	24. panic attack

Gibbs drove twice his usual breakneck speed to get to the killers house. He had barely pulled into the driveway before Tony was pushing open his door and getting out of the car. Gibbs simply sighed. He could tell Tony to wait in the car, but there was really no point. As long as his partner was missing he would be unstoppable. He could collapse after they found her.

Gibbs got out quickly and was right behind Tony. He gestured to McGee to go around back before he broke down the front door and entered the house, Tony right behind him. They went through carefully, clearing room after room finding the house completely empty. Gibbs could sense the frustration coming off his senior field agent in waves.

"There's nothing out back." They heard McGee call from downstairs. Gibbs whipped out his cell phone.

"Abby there's nothing here. Do a run on any additional properties, storage lockers, anywhere he could take Ziva." He didn't wait for a response before disconnecting the call.

"We'll find her." He said to DiNozzo before heading down the stairs.

Tony just stood still trying valiantly to fight off the waves of panic that kept threatening to come back up. She wasn't there. Ziva wasn't here. She was with some psychotic killer and they didn't know where she was. He felt his chest start to tighten and his breathing become more laboured. He was still standing there when McGee found him.

"Whoa Tony, uh, take deep breaths, here sit in this chair, put you head between your knees and breath." McGee said eyes wide. He was a little concerned that Tony was having a panic attack. He also knew that Tony would be upset that he was witnessing his breakdown, and that he wouldn't want Gibbs to see him like this. He considered walking away and leaving him for privacy, however considering he had just been stunned he didn't think that would be such a great idea. He took a step back giving Tony his space but still keeping his eyes on the other agent. It wasn't long before Tony's breathing returned to normal and he was able to sit up.

"He has her Tim."

It was the use of his first name, more then Tony's tone that told him just how much this was affecting the other agent. "We'll find her Tony."

"I'm in love with her."

"I know. We'll get her back."

"What if we don't?" He asked in a small voice.

McGee was concerned. This was Tony. Tony never showed any type of vulnerability. Tony was always the confidant agent who never let anything get to him. Except apparently, for Ziva. Ziva was the chink in his armour. It was this that had McGee strengthening his resolve to be the one who would be confidant. They were family, and while they needed to find Ziva, Tony needed Tim to have his back.

"We'll find her. Besides this is Ziva we're talking about. She's Mossad. That was the killers first mistake, he just kidnapped a Mossad agent. How stupid can you be?" he said with a small smile.

Tony allowed himself a small smile. "Thanks Tim."

Tim just nodded his head.

"If you ever tell anyone about my breakdown I will sic Ziva on you." Tony said with a smile.

McGee just rolled his eyes but allowed a true smile to grace his face. If Tony was joking he would be ok. The crises had past.

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He brought her in and decided that it might be fun if he tied her to a chair. He pulled out an old wooden chair and brought it to the center of the room. He picked her up and sat her on the chair making sure to tie the ropes holding her tightly. She had after all broken his nose; he wasn't going to underestimate her again. He went to get his tools and arrange them nicely on his table. He was going to have some fun with this one. It wasn't enough to just kill her anymore. First she had thought she could catch him and now she had broken his nose. She needed to learn her lesson.

Ziva awoke slowly. She felt ridiculously groggy and remember him injecting her with something in the car. She was also sore, probably from having been stunned. She slowly became aware that she was sitting up tied to a chair. Her mind processed that that could also have something to do with the way her muscles ached. She tried flexing against the bonds that held her and she noticed that they were tied tightly. It would take some effort to get out of these. She was confidant she could do it, however it would take time. She slowly opened her eyes and wished she had kept them closed.

He sat in front of her in a chair similar to her own. He was grinning; seemingly content to just stare at her. She suppressed the shudder that wanted to rip through her body. She noticed with some satisfaction that she had broken his nose. However he didn't seem to be any worse the where.

"Good evening my Sweet. Did you have a good sleep?"

Ziva determined to not say anything. In her experience talking to serial killers only made her mad, then she would say something stupid to bait them and they would hurt her. Not that she couldn't deal with whatever he wanted to hand out; however she didn't want to return to the others wounded because of something she said. Then she would feel guilty as they fussed over her injuries that really could have been avoided. She looked around and noticed the table full of different types of knives. She rolled her eyes. Great, looks like she was going to be fussed over no matter what she did.

He noticed her lack of fear and it angered him. Who did she think she was? He saw her glance towards the table and then roll her eyes. Did she think he wouldn't use them? She was fully aware he had killed others, why wouldn't she show some type of fear?

"Who are you?" he finally asked." She didn't answer. He reached up to the table and grabbed a knife. "I asked you a question. It's only polite to answer."

She simply rolled her eyes and sighed before conceding to his question. "I am Ziva."

"Ziva," he mused out load. "I like that better then Muffy. What agency are you with?"

She simply raised her eyebrows. "That's a complicated question." She responded.

She saw that her response seemed to have angered him.

"It's not a complicated question. I want an answer or you can take my knife in your leg."

She quickly weighed the pros and cons of each of the answers she could give him. Just as he was about to plunge his knife into her leg she said "I am with NCIS."

"Nice try Ziva. There's no such agency." He answered and then took the knife and cut her leg.

Ziva remained completely still. The cut stung, but it wasn't deep, and while it would bleed, it certainly wasn't life threatening.

"It stands for Naval Criminal Investigative Service." She said without flinching.

"You're Navy cops?" He said in disbelief. He couldn't believe she still wasn't showing any fear. All of his other victims begged for their lives. She just sat there, bleeding from the leg, speaking as if they were just having a normal conversation.

"Two of your previous victims were sailor's wives." She explained calmly.

He was finding this conversation completely surreal. She should be crying, or begging. Perhaps even trying to bargain with him, but instead she just sat there conversing as if they were in a park.

"I left your husband on the ground. I had to set the stun gun up pretty high; I hope I didn't hurt him too much." With those words he finally got the flare of something in her eyes. It didn't stay long, and he wasn't sure what it had been, but it was more then indifference and he was content that he had found her weak spot.

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Abby was frantically trying to find something, anything that would tell them where Ziva was. Alex Karas didn't have any additional properties in his name so she quickly started searching under any and all known family's names. "Bingo." She finally uttered. "I found you."

She quickly dialled Gibbs.

"What do you have for me Abbs?"

"His mother has a hunting cabin registered in her name just outside of the city. She's been dead for over a year. I'm sending the co-ordinates to Tim's cell phone.

"Thanks Abbs, I owe you a caf-pow." He said before quickly disconnecting.

"We found them." He said to Tony and McGee before quickly heading out to the car. "Abby is sending you the co-ordinates." He said to McGee.

"It's a cabin about 45 minutes outside of the city boss."

"We can do it in less." Was Gibbs response as he peeled out of the driveway causing McGee and Tony to hold on for dear life.

"I'm coming Zee." Tony softly whispered to himself.

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**A/N: Please don't hate me too much. I promise we're coming to a close. The story is way longer then I had ever intended it to be. It kinda grew a life of it's own :)**


	25. Conversations with a Killer

Ziva was starting to get tired of this staring competition they seemed to be having. Neither wanted to be the one to break it. She didn't want to give in to this psycho and he clearly didn't want her to have any type of dominance. She was a little bit worried about Tony. Although, if all he had done was stun him then she was sure he would be fine. It was the drugs she was worried about. She was still feeling weaker then her normal self and she didn't know what he had given her.

Suddenly he leaned forward and slashed her other leg with the knife. Again she refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. She knew he was looking for control; he wanted to see her beg or plead. She simply would not give him the satisfaction. It was only going to be a matter of time before Gibbs and the team managed to track them down. She simply had to stay alive until then.

What was with her? She was driving him crazy. He wanted nothing more then some type of reaction out of her; however she absolutely refused to give in. He had cut her other leg just to see what she would do. Once again he had gotten nothing. Fine, if she wanted to play hard ball, then he would give her hard ball. He stood up and punched her in the face. Her head recoiled from the blow and blood started trickling down her face from the split in her eyebrow. Again she did nothing. This was not turning out to be as fun as he had planned.

"Why house wives?" Ziva finally asked breaking the silence. She knew he wanted to be in control and perhaps if he was talking he would cease to hurt her.

"Because they're weak." He spit out. Ziva simply raised her eyebrows. "They stay at home and let someone else take care of them. They don't say anything or do anything to be in control of their own life. Someone else pays their bills, someone else buys their food. And when their husband comes home and beats them and their kids they let him." He ranted. "They're better off dead."

Ziva felt her eyebrows rise. He was clearly delusional from a childhood trauma. Perhaps she could reason with him. She looked up and saw that he was pacing and ranting. He was not at all rational so all thoughts of reason fled. Clearly he didn't like her non reactions. She would just keep trying that for as long as she could.

"I liked killing them." He finally said to her. "The begged me to spare them, they bargained for their lives. It was fun." He studied her for a few minutes. "Do you not want to live?"

She didn't answer his question. Admitting that she wanted to live would be akin to signing her own death warrant, and not admitting it would be stupid as well, so once again she chose silence.

"I asked you a question _ZIVA!" _he yelled spitting out her name. "I can kill you you know. Just like all the others. I can make it slow and painful so why don't you freaking answer my question!"

Ziva just looked up at him in stony silence. She wasn't going to break no matter what he did. Even if he killed her she knew that Gibbs would track him down. She had a passing thought that she wished she had of slept with Tony the other night. If she had known she was going to be stuck with their killer she would have taken things forward regardless of the mission. All thoughts fled with the killer plunged his knife into her side. Her Mossad training quickly had her assessing the depth of the wound. It was serious, however she knew if she was treated soon it wasn't life threatening. However, if help were not to come soon she could bleed out.

"I told you to answer the question." Alex said in a low voice. "Do you want to live? If you don't answer me next time I'm going after you 'husband'."

It was his mention of Tony that had her breaking out of her daze and the rage to come rushing in. He would not hurt Tony!

"What difference does my answer make if you plan on killing me anyway?" she finally asked.

He simply stared at her for a few minutes before a malicious grin swept across his face. "It makes everything more fun."

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McGee was holding onto the dash for his life. He was used to driving with Gibbs, somehow Tony and Ziva always managed to take another car, but this was a bit much even for Gibbs. They had broken ever road rule ever put in place on the rush over to the cabin, of that McGee was sure. If Ziva hadn't been stuck with the killer, he might have protested the speed and recklessness at which they were driving, but he was worried and anxious and so he merely tightened his grip and continued to spout directions when they were needed.

Tony was lying down on the back seat of the car. He had started the ride sitting up, but after a few turns he quickly decided that he was still too weak to try and hold himself straight and so he simply lay down on the backseat deciding to conserve his strength for when they found Ziva. He was worried. Thankfully his breakdown earlier had managed to dispel the worst of it from his system, but he was still frightfully worried about his partner. He wouldn't let himself think of the "what ifs" and tried instead to concentrate on when they found her. He just wished Gibbs would drive even faster.

Gibbs was pouring all his rage and frustration into his driving. He could have taken the turns more cautiously, he could drive fast without jerking the car around, but it gave him a measure of satisfaction to pull sharp turns. This was his fault. They should have been closer to the house. They should have been doing surveillance from the street, not from headquarters. Then they could have been there on time and the bastard would never have managed to get away with Ziva. His grip on the steering wheel tightened and his knuckles went white. They would get there in time. They had to get there on time. He couldn't cope with another agent down. He thought of Tony in the backseat and the desperation he had seen in his eyes. All right, he couldn't cope with two agents down. He slammed his foot down on the accelerator even harder as they picked up even more speed.

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Ziva simply rolled her eyes at him. "Yes I want to live, are you happy with that answer?"

If anything he smile grew even bigger. "I do believe that this just got better, thank you Ziva."

He started to approach her with his knife and Ziva decided she needed to do something. She waited until he got close and then swung her chair around knocking into his legs and sending him down. His knife went flying and she took the opportunity to bring the chair and all of her weight down on one of his legs. He screamed grabbing at his leg but it wasn't long before he stood up and backhanded her across the face, causing her to loose the little balance she had still being tied to the chair and knocking her down to the floor.

"THAT WASN'T NICE ZIVA." He screamed bending into her face on the floor. "THIS IS MY GAME NOT YOURS!" He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her up, so that she was once again sitting upright in the chair. "I'm done with this." He said more calmly and went to the table to grab another knife. He picked it up and held it over her. She closed her eyes anticipating the sharp plunge of the knife and suddenly two gun shots rang out.

She opened her eyes in time to see Alex collapsing towards her, knife still in hand, two blood stains spreading across her chest. He fell on top of her, his knife grazing her arm painfully before she heard people calling her name.

Tony had felt his heart stop when they had walked into the cabin and saw Alex standing over Ziva with a knife in Hand. Gibbs had quickly shot him, and Tony's heart had stopped again when he saw the killer collapse towards Ziva. He quickly called out her name and rushed towards her. He pulled the body off of her and quickly started to asses her wounds. She needed a hospital fast. The wound in her arm was bleeding badly and he could see that she had a stab wound to the side and gashes in her legs. He quickly untied her, not saying anything as there was so much rushing around in his head. He laid her on the ground as Gibbs joined him and they quickly started to staunch the blood flow as McGee had already called the ambulance.

Ziva had never been so grateful to see Tony in her entire life. As he had pulled the body off of her and untied her she kept quiet, knowing that whatever she wanted to say to him she didn't want to say here. As he laid her on the ground and he and Gibbs started to cover her gashes she suddenly felt very tired. She looked up and saw the concern in both Tony and Gibbs eyes. "I will be fine." She managed to say somewhat weakly. "They are just scratches."

Gibbs just shook his head and Tony started to brush the hair off her forehead.

"The ambulance will be here soon sweet cheeks. It's all over now; you're going to be fine."

She smiled ruefully and said, "I just said that Tony." She found she could barely keep her eyes open. "Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you." She said before letting sleep overtake her.

Gibbs heard her declaration and quickly looked to his senior field agent for his reaction. The look of panic that crossed Tony's face when Ziva succumbed to unconsciousness broke his heart.

"Tony." "Tony." He said louder as he gotten no response. Tony finally turned his head to look at him a look of helpless desperation in his eyes.

"She may be unconscious but she can still hear you." Tony simply nodded at him to show he understood and then leaned down and whispered something in her ear. It was then that the ambulance finally decided to show up, loading Ziva carefully.

"Tony you ride in the ambulance. We'll meet you at Bethesda." Was all he said before grabbing McGee and heading out to the car. He knew it was going to be a very long night.

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**A/N: So it's almost done. I'm thinking two more chapters. Please don't hate me, I promise Ziva won't die. I couldn't do that to her!**

** -Thanks Kris**


	26. The Hospital

Gibbs sat in a hospital chair slowly drinking the crap they called coffee. It hadn't taken them long to get to Bethesda and they had come in to see Tony frantically pacing the waiting room.

"They took her into surgery." Was all he said but his eyes spoke volumes. He had steadfastly refused to let anyone check him over after his incident with the stun gun insisting that he was fine. Gibbs personally thought that he looked like he could collapse if you so much as touched him, but he kept that thought to himself knowing that it wouldn't get them anywhere.

"Tony, oh my gosh Tony." Abby cried entering the waiting room and rushing to Tony with all the force of a freight train. Gibbs winced at the look on Tony's face as she collided with him, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing like she would never let go. Thankfully McGee stepped in.

"Abby, you need to let him go. He was stunned earlier. If you need to squeeze the life out of someone you can squeeze me." She let go of Tony and promptly latched on to McGee causing him to loose his breath in a whoosh at the intensity of the squeeze, which caused a ghost of a smile to cross Tony's face.

"I don't think he meant it literally Abbs." Tony said before going back to his pacing.

"I'm scared McGee." Abby quietly said into his chest and McGee sighed before shepherding her to a chair and sitting them both down.

It was only a moment before Ducky and Palmer entered the waiting room. "We came with Abby," Ducky offered, "however she took off as soon as the car was parked." He said shaking his head. "Has there been any word?"

"No." Tony answered sharply with a bitter laugh. "She's been in surgery for 45min already."

"That's not long my dear boy; however I'll go see what I can find out for you." He quickly left the waiting room and headed towards the nurses station. He was only gone for a few minutes before coming back. He walked up until he was standing directly in front of Tony.

"Its good news my boy. None of her wounds were fatal. They simply took her into surgery to clean the wounds and stitch her up. She should be out very shortly. They gave her some blood to replace the amount she lost, which is what caused her to pass out in the first place." Just as he had finished explaining one of the doctors came into the waiting room.

"Family of Ziva David?" he asked mispronouncing her name. No one bothered to correct him as they all wanted to know about her condition. They all gathered around the doctor who simply raised his eyebrows at the crowd of people.

"She's doing fine. She's out of surgery and we've put her in a private room at the request of one Tom E. Gemcity." Everyone looked at McGee who simply shrugged. He wasn't above using his fame if it helped friends. "We have her on a few pain killers, so she's a bit out of it right now, normally we would have just given her an anaesthetic however she woke up shortly after getting here and tried to walk out on a couple of our nurses."

Tony rolled his eyes. That sounded like Ziva alright. "Can we see her? He asked."

"She can have visitors two at a time."

"Thank you doctor." Ducky offered and the doctor nodded his head and headed off down the hallway.

"I'm first." Abby cried bouncing up and down on her feet as she tried to restrain herself from running down the hall into Ziva's room.

"Why don't you take with McGee with you?" Tony offered before collapsing into a chair. McGee gave him a strange look, however took off down the hall after Abby who had been off like a shot after Tony gave her the ok.

"You ok Tony?" Gibbs asked coming to sit next to his senior field agent.

Tony tiredly rubbed his hands down his face. "I feel like I've just aged 10 years."

"Love will do that to you." Gibbs replied.

Tony quickly whirled his head to face Gibbs. "Boss?"

Gibbs simply sighed. "Look DiNozzo, I'm not blind. You two have so thoroughly busted rule 12 that all I can do is rescind the rule. I meant what I said about not hurting her; however I don't think you will. All I can say is I don't want to see this in the office. No Grab Ass, no using my conference room for 'extra curricular activities' and you absolutely can not freak out about my sending Ziva on cases."

"Thank you boss." Was all he said before letting a smile cross his face and leaning his head back against the chair.

"And DiNozzo?"

"Yeah boss?"

"If you think this is bad, just wait until there's kids." Gibbs said smirking as he had managed to cleanly wipe the contented look off of Tony's face.

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Ziva woke up slowly taking in where she was much slower then she normally would. Her memories of the night before slowly came back to her as she registered that she was in a hospital bed. She could feel someone's hand on hers and she looked to her side and saw Tony, fast asleep in a hard chair, his hand wrapped around hers like he would never let go. She allowed herself a smile. He looked so uncomfortably and charming asleep like that. He was snoring lightly and he looked like he hadn't gone home. Someone had given him some scrubs to wear; absently it crossed her mind that his clothes had probably been covered in her blood. She mentally debated waking him, he looked like he needed the sleep, however he also looked very uncomfortable. Which was ultimately what had her tightening her grip on his hand and whispering "Tony?"

He came awake in an instant. His gaze quickly going to her face before a giant smile crossed his face. "You're awake." He said leaning closer to the bed and her face.

"I am yes." She responded drily then added "You look like carp."

He chuckled and she was warmed by the sound. "You mean crap. And you don't look so hot yourself."

His words quickly made her think about her appearance and she winced when she thought about the damage done to her face.

"How bad?" she asked him.

"Well, you were stabbed and sliced and you've got a very nice shiner from a blow to the eye area." He told her "And you're beautiful."

His last words had her pausing. Beautiful wasn't something that was normally applied to people with stab wounds and black eyes. Nor was it something he had ever called her before. Hot and Sexy she had heard but beautiful?

"I think you may need your eyes checked Tony."

"Nope they're working just fine. You're beautiful. He insisted tightening his grip on her hand. And I would really appreciate if you could not do this to me again. I'm pretty sure I've aged 10 years."

Ziva rolled her eyes. "Oh yes, because I enjoy being taken hostage by a killer while my partner gets left behind. I was worried about you." She admitted softly.

"I know the feeling." He responded. "Now I think we need to talk about what you said last night." He said with a grin.

Ziva tensed. She had hoped that she had dreamed up that part. This was where he would now tell her that he really liked her as a partner, but that if she was in love with him then they shouldn't take it any further because he didn't want to hurt her. She braced herself for his let down.

"I'm glad you said it." He started absently rubbing circles on the palm of her hand. "Did you mean it?" he asked.

Ziva looked down at the sheet that was covering her. "I had lost a lot of blood. I wasn't in control of myself." She muttered.

"But did you mean it?" he asked leaning across and tilting her head so that she was looking into his eyes.

"Yes." She whispered cautiously waiting for the rejection to follow.

"Good. Because I love you too." Her eyes went wide.

He shook his head at the look on her face. "Ok, I know I don't have the best track record, but I'm going to clarify this once and for all. I'm in Love with you. As in romantically." He added as an afterthought knowing that she could take his meaning for a completely different type of love.

Ziva's eyes started to well with tears which started freaking Tony out a little bit. Ziva _never_ cried.

"Thank you." Was all she said before she was pulling on him to come closer to the bed. Their lips met in a sweet kiss, one that was full of promise and hope. Neither one wanted to be the one to break it, however due to the need for air, Tony pulled back.

"I love you." He said as he tentatively rested his forehead on her's.

She gave a bright smile. "I love you too." They stayed like that for a moment before Ziva noticed that Tony looked uncomfortable.

"Will you hold me?" she asked.

"I would love to, but there's no room in that bed and I really don't want to hurt you."

"There is room." She replied scooting up a little. "You can rest behind me."

Tony quickly saw what she was doing and slid in behind her on the bed, gently wrapping his arms around her waist as she leaned back against his chest. He rhythmic breathing soon loured her back to sleep, and he allowed himself to nod off with her secure in his arms.

Gibbs walked into the hospital room and stood standing at the door for a moment. He shook his head ruefully. Only Tony would find a way into a hospital bed. He watched the couple as the lay sound asleep. He had to admit they looked good together.

"Boss?" he heard Tony whisper.

He walked into the room to go see his senior field agent.

"What is it DiNozzo?"

"We need to talk about some vacation time."


	27. Epilogue

Tony felt his heart stop and his breath catch as he saw Ziva coming towards him. After the fiasco with the Stepford killer as he had been dubbed by McGee he had managed to negotiate some vacation time for both he and Ziva. Gibbs surprisingly hadn't even hesitated to give it to them. In fact he had told them, "It was about time one of you took vacation." and given them each a week. Tony didn't think Vance had been too happy about being down two agents, but he liked the idea of them taking their vacation. The pay out for unused vacation was always high at the end of the year for Gibbs team. Ziva had healed nicely, they had waited to go on vacation until she had recovered, her insisting she was fine, and Tony making her stay at his house so he could watch her. They had barely been apart since they had admitted that they loved each other, and while naturally they sometimes fought like little kids (or an old married couple if you asked McGee and Abby) they found they more then enjoyed each others company.

Tony turned his attention back to Ziva. She was wearing a simple white sundress and he thought she had never looked so beautiful. She reached him and he grabbed her hands and kissed her forehead. They smiled into each others eyes and turned to face the minister. Finally the "I do's" were all said, the rings were exchanged and Tony was told he could kiss his bride.

This kiss was almost chaste, full of love, hope and promise and then they were heading out holding hands into the warm dry air of Las Vegas.

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**A/N: So thats it. The end of my very first actually fanfiction. I'm almost sad to be finished with it, but now I can spend more time updating Camp Waterford and I have another idea that's just dying to be written.**

**I hope that anyone that managed to stick with this thus far has enjoyed it. I've enjoyed your comments and reviews and I thank you for them.**

** Thanks Again -Kris**


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